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A welcome return to watch Cambridge in the Carabao Cup brought back a whole lot of memories, nostalgia and contemplation
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Football — Max Rushden
On 11 February 1989, Cambridge United beat Hartlepool 6-0. My memories of the game are faint. The internet can’t even tell me who scored – perhaps Laurie Ryan got a couple. I do recall walking past some Hartlepool fans on Coldham’s Common who were peering into a brook. “Looking for a new centre forward?”
Not a terrible joke from my dad. There was polite laughter at least.
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I also remember it was my friend Clive’s first game. How can you possibly start with a 6-0? It will never be that good again. My debut was coming back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 with Exeter three or four years earlier. That feels about right. Here’s your team, as Gennaro Gattuso would say, sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit.
We sat in the Junior U’s enclosure (not enclosed) in block A and probably talked about Panini stickers and which division we’d end up playing in when we were older. We weren’t shooting for the stars – a solid Division Three career beckoned.
On Tuesday night, 37 years after the Hartlepool demotion, Clive and I are in the main stand watching the U’s take on Millwall in the Carabao Cup second round – zero professional appearances between us.
When you’re 10, a lot of the game passes you by. The game is happening, but there’s cigarettes and swearing and big men shouting. I don’t really remember going to the Abbey being a choice. This was just what I did every other week for the best part of a decade. I’m not sure I ever questioned it.
On Tuesday, again a lot of the game passed us by, it wasn’t a classic. Millwall legend, and enormous man, Jake Cooper scored early and despite some decent football we never really got close to breaking them down. The Littlewoods/Milk/Rumbelows/Carling/Carabao dream over for yet another year.
There was far less talk of football stickers and who was better at shooting; more parenting, mortgages, family and a new terrifying hot topic: retirement. Life was more straightforward when you were 10.
While there are many fans who went week in week out as children, and still do as adults, for many, perhaps most of us, geography and life mean a trip is rare to this place where a piece of your heart resides.
There’s a genuine fear this will read like a motivational Instagram reel about ageing and appreciating the moment over some plinky-plonky music. But near the ground I am moved by the nostalgia and familiarity. I can’t work out whether it’s as wonderful as I think it is or whether I just want it to feel like that because if you’re lucky enough to have had a wonderful childhood it’s nice to remember it.
Perhaps it’s more pertinent because I live 10,000 miles away. Or maybe I’m just at the start of a mid-life crisis or I can get a column out of it.
U’s fans sing: “Walking down Newmarket Road to see the Cambridge aces”. And there is the “This is home” moment when the floodlights come into view. It was two nights ago, but I can’t remember whether they were on. In my mind they were, of course. These misty beacons shining above the sky. Then there’s the Wrestlers pub to the left, Coldham’s Common to the right.
I’m lucky we still play in the same ground that, despite a few little upgrades, looks identical to how it did in the 90s. The same bricks, the same yellow wooden doors, the same rickety turnstiles.
It is odd to sit in the main stand and think about the number of times I sat a couple of blocks away, marvelling at the noise of this place. Like nothing I’d seen before. It’s odd to look at the north terrace and think about the hours I spent in there feeling as if I was part of a Galatasaray-style set of ultras. The Cambridge firm. It’s a stand that doesn’t even take up the width of the pitch. Possibly the least intimidating set of supporters going.
Then we’re into classic lower-league football, just people sitting there yelling stuff. Pelly Ruddock Mpanzu passes the ball backwards (we try to keep the ball these days): “GET IT FORWARD.” A winger plays it back to the full-back to make a better angle for the cross: “JUST GET IT IN THERE.” The referee gives a justifiable decision to Millwall: the rage swearing begins in force. It’s all good stuff.
But a lot of the game is categorically not interesting. OK, it’s a slightly meaningless game, even if Alex Neil has turned bright red from shouting for 90 minutes. But I berate myself for getting bored. Clive and I don’t even want penalties. We want a pint at the Devonshire Arms.
After all these years, do I still love going to football, do I love Cambridge United? Or do I just love the idea of it? Have I simply become a TV supporter, a highlights merchant?
One-nil down and the board goes up showing six added minutes. SIX. But then we push for an equaliser. The keeper comes up for a corner. We all stand up and lean to our left to see past the metal post that has blocked our view of the goal at the Newmarket Road end for the previous hour and a half.
We don’t really fashion that one chance. Then it’s full time. We’re having a pint as two teenagers run past, followed by a big gang of young Cambridge fans – all about 5ft, voices not yet broken. “Are you Millwall?” “No, Cambridge.” “Where do you live?” “Bishop’s Stortford.” “Ah, don’t worry.” The Cambridge firm again, every bit as unthreatening as in the 90s.
Back to the Instagram reel that tells me in 50 years I’ll be dead and in 100 I’ll be a photo on someone’s bookcase if I’m lucky and in 200 no one will remember a thing about me. It’s reassuring that the thing that used to be such a regular part of my life just keeps on keeping on: different seven-year-olds in the main stand, different 18-year-olds in the north terrace, and even if you can only pop back very intermittently it still feels almost the same.
Not a terrible joke from my dad. There was polite laughter at least.
This report is published with credit to The Guardian. Full available text from the wire is above. Read on The Guardian →
Source: The Guardian · Max Rushden. Published 27 Aug 2026, 01:41 pm.
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