ANDREW BENNETT TRIBUTE

Article from the Cambridge United website

Cambridge United are pleased to announce the Club will be joined in the 8build Executive Hospitality Lounge tomorrow by six family members and friends of the late Club Historian Andrew Bennett.

Andrew, who was earlier this season recognised as the Club’s official Historian and was widely regarded as the fount of all knowledge when it came to the U’s, sadly passed away last Wednesday following a long battle with cancer.

Andrew has been posthumously awarded the Ethos Community Hero of the Day award, and his family and friends will deliver the official match ball to the match referee in Andrew’s place, before the Club will ask supporters to join us in a minute’s applause to remember and celebrate Andrew’s contribution to Cambridge United.

Also ahead of tomorrow’s fixture with Grimsby Town at the Abbey Stadium, the match day playlist has been specifically selected from Andrew’s other passion in life, music, by close friends David Stroud, Martin Jordan and Ian Elliott.

Ian has also penned a fitting tribute to Andrew within the match day programme, one of the many platforms in which Andrew had kept many a Cambridge United supporter entertained through the years with his regular columns, reports and musings.

Read a preview of Ian’s tribute here:
Apparently I met Andrew on the away terrace of the now demolished Boothferry Park in Hull. I say apparently because I once had to ask the great man to remind me where I first bumped into him – sadly my memory isn't what it used to be.

Little did I know back then that this chance meeting in the mid-90s would lead to over 20 years of friendship that would take us to all manner of places both home and abroad in pursuit of visiting yet another new football ground.
It became clear to me at quite an early stage in our friendship that there was far more to Andrew than meets the eye. He was a quiet man by nature but anyone fortunate enough to get to know him well would discover an amazingly intelligent, witty person whose knowledge of both football and music was encyclopaedic. Indeed once you had gained his trust he would happily talk the hind legs off the proverbial donkey if you got him started on one of his passions.

In the late 90's he started to write match reports for both Moosenet and Andrea Thrussell's unofficial  CUFC website "U's Net" which continued once Andrea started running the official website. The reports themselves were amazingly crafted works of art – nothing else could possibly begin to describe them. Accurate, witty and irreverent they could always be relied upon to raise a smile regardless of how well or badly the U's had played. To this day these reports have been read and enjoyed by countless people especially by those exiled supporters across the world.