United's History

by Simon Gleave

The first two league seasons saw Utd, managed by Bill Leivers, establish themselves in Division 4 before gaining promotion in 1973. Unfortunately, the team didn't survive their first season in Division 3 and were relegated with Bill Leivers losing his job. The season did see Cambridge reach the third round of the FA Cup for the first time though and saw them play in the first Sunday match against Oldham Athletic. Oldham finally disposed of Utd at the third attempt.

After Leivers' sacking, a young manager by the name of Ron Atkinson took over and set about rebuilding the Utd side. Atkinson gradually built a well balanced team with ex Arsenal trainees Malcolm Webster in goal and full back Brendan Batson bolstering the defence. Young central defender Steve Fallon looked a promising player as did 5'3" Steve Spriggs who'd been picked up from Huddersfield. In attack, blond haired Alan Biley (a free transfer from Luton Town) was the fans' great hero (pictured right). In 1977, this team stylishly won the Division 4 championship, scoring 87 goals and with Utd riding high in Division 3 in the spring of 1978, Atkinson was attracting the big clubs. He finally left to join West Bromwich Albion saying that he'd left the club in a good enough state to gain promotion. Batson soon followed Atkinson to WBA but the team, with new manager, John Docherty was indeed good enough to get into Division 2, a feat made even more enjoyable by the fact that bitter rivals, Peterborough Utd missed out on goal average.

1978-1979 saw Cambridge finish in a highly respectable 12th place having signed Tom Finney (no, not that one) and Derrick Christie to join the promotion winning side. A number of promising youngsters were coming through but Utd desperately needed a target man to work off the wingers and Alan Biley. Finally, George Reilly arrived in November 1979 for the then record fee of 140,000 pounds. His partnership with Biley seemed to work at first but by the beginning of 1980, it was clear that Biley wanted a move - he was eventually sold for 350,000 pounds to Derby County and missed out on Cambridge's biggest game to date, a fourth round FA Cup tie against Aston Villa. The first game ended 1-1 with Chris Turner scoring Utd's equaliser but the replay saw Villa run out comfortable 4-1 winners. However, this was to be the start of many Cambridge cup exploits throughout the 1980's and 1990's. Utd finished 8th in 1980 and their high position was mainly down to the great atmosphere at the Abbey spurring them on to victories over much more illustrious clubs.

1980-1981 saw Utd finish in their standard mid table position but have their finest cup run yet, this time in the League Cup. However, the league season began perfectly as Alan Biley and his relegated Derby side played Cambridge at the Baseball Ground and were convincingly beaten 3-0, the same score would be seen at the Abbey later that season. The second round of the League Cup saw Utd drawn against Cup holders Wolves but after winning 3-1 at the Abbey, Cambridge produced a masterly defensive performance at Molineux with Dave Stringer scoring on the break to secure a 4-1 winning aggregate.

Round 4 saw the return of Aston Villa to the Abbey and when Tony Morley scored for the Villans after 4 minutes, things looked ominous. However, Utd stormed back and were 2-1 up after 18. This was the final score and Cambridge were in the 4th round for the first time ever. Coventry took the lead in the next round after 35 seconds but Alan Taylor (the two goal FA Cup hero of West Ham in 1975) equalised early in the second half. The remainder of the game was tight until Christie hit the bar in injury time. Coventry came back to the Abbey and won 1-0 as Cambridge produced a poor performance topped off by a missed penalty from Spriggs (left).

The next two seasons again saw Cambridge fighting against relegation for the first half of the season before putting a run together to finish clear. However, the team was beginning to break up and things looked ominous despite 1983's run to the FA Cup 5th round. Utd beat Weymouth and Barnsley before losing 2-1 to Sheffield Wednesday in front of 10,834.

Sure enough 1983-1984 was to be the worst season in Utd's history as they ran up a record breaking 31 games without a win. Docherty was sacked towards the end of 1983 and replaced by the first of the worst two managers in Utd's history, John Ryan. Ryan couldn't stop the rot and was even sent off while turning out as player manager. Utd did finally win a game (1-0 against Newcastle) but they were already doomed and 1984-85 would be their first season in Div 3 for 6 years.

Ryan was kept on as manager and Utd began promisingly. However, the first half of the season saw Cambridge win a mere 3 games and Ryan was sacked and replaced by Ken Shellito (arguably the poorest manager ever). Things actually got worse as Utd failed to win at all between Boxing Day 1984 and May Day 1985 when they won 1-0 at Rotherham with a penalty scored by Roy McDonagh. The season had become a complete joke by then and we were actually quite enjoying it on the terraces - luckily Cambridge weren't in the bottom division because they were quite clearly the worst team in the football league.

At the end of the season, Shellito got his marching orders and was replaced by ex-Utd player, Chris Turner who would build the best ever Utd team. His first season in charge saw Cambridge having to apply for re-election but 4th bottom of Div 4 was a triumph after the two previous seasons and a decent end of season run gave everybody optimism. Turner had also bought a striker called David Crown who had broken Utd's scoring record in a season. The team was now gradually supplemented with free transfers and small fee rejects from bigger clubs. 1986-1987 and 1987-1988 saw Utd improve but it wasn't until 1988-1989 that we realised something special was going on. Cambridge finished marginally outside the play-offs but a rangy 19 year old called Dion Dublin scored a hat-trick at Peterborough on his second appearance and this was followed with a 6-0 victory against Hartlepool (Utd's best result in 15 years) and another hat-trick from a Colchester reject, John Taylor.

The summer of 1989 saw the signing of Lee Philpott, a tricky winger from Peterborough and the team was now almost complete; John Vaughan, Alan Kimble, Colin Bailie, Phil Chapple, Liam Daish, Chris Leadbitter, Tony Dennis, Danny O'Shea, Lee Philpott, John Taylor, Dion Dublin. As usual when expectations are high, Utd started badly, failing to win any of their first five games and only winning one of the first nine. However, five straight victories in October saw them rise to 11th place. November and December contained FA Cup victories over Aldershot and Woking but the league position was not improving. Taylor scored a hat-trick against Peterborough but the team still wasn't doing itself justice.

The turning point came with an FA Cup third round replay at non league Darlington. First, Darlington had a perfectly good goal disallowed when they were 1-0 up before Cambridge rattled three in during the second half. The following day, Turner resigned as manager and was replaced by his assistant, John Beck. Beck only made one slight alteration to the team but it would prove crucial. He moved Colin Bailie into the ball winning midfield position and drafted in young Andy Fensome at right back. The team then went 10 games without defeat and became the fourth side from Division 4 to reach the 6th round of the FA Cup. They got there by knocking first division Millwall out in round 4 followed by a titanic battle with Bristol City which was finally won 5-1 in the second replay as everything Utd tried worked. Crystal Palace were the sixth round visitors on March 10th and a Geoff Thomas goal smashed the dream of a semi final appearance.

Cambridge only won 1 of their next 8 games and were lying 15th after the draw at Scunthorpe on April 7. However, there was a backlog of fixtures and a good end of season run could see Utd into the play-offs. Four straight wins followed including a 2-1 win at Peterborough that finished their chances of promotion. Utd slipped up in their next couple of games but then convincingly beat Colchester and Gillingham to reach their final game at Aldershot requiring a victory to be sure of a play off place. Utd dominated a game in which Daish was sent off, winning 2-0. The play-off semi would be against Maidstone Utd who had already been played 4 times that season.

Maidstone had a frightening strike force themselves in Steve Butler and Mark Gall who had scored 43 goals between them, whilst midfield back-up came in the form of young Jason Lillis who had scored 14 times himself. The first leg was a dour affair with Utd taking the lead with a penalty and Gall equalising near the end. Three days later, the return was played in Dartford and with the game heading for injury time, Gall found himself clean through but could only put the ball wide. This was the point where Maidstone's away goal could be important as away goals counted double at the end of extra time. After half of extra time, the score was still 0-0 but with ten minutes to go, Dublin beat the offside trap and Utd had the lead. Soon afterwards, he was tripped and Cheetham scored the resulting penalty. Utd were at Wembley.