Andrew Bennett who sadly passed away in 2018 meticulously researched and engagingly wrote the Celery & Coconuts series, which is telling the entire history of Abbey/Cambridge United.
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Copies of Volume 1 & 2 can be purchased for a special price - click on the image below for more details
Celery & Coconuts: Volume I – Newmarket Road Roughs - The Story of Abbey United and Cambridge United Football Club: 1912-1951
In the early years of the twentieth century, many residents of the Cambridge district of Barnwell had little going for them. It would take a long time for the poverty and squalor of the dense warren of housing, erected hurriedly during the Victorian industrial boom, to be alleviated.
From 1912 onwards, they had something to lift their spirits: their own football club.
Abbey United sprang up in the gloomy streets and on the bumpy commons of Barnwell. Sustained by the aid of the church, local benefactors and a steadfast band of devoted supporters, the club made rapid strides. As the 1950s dawned, it was contemplating the big time.
This volume examines in depth the birth and early years of a club that would one day threaten to storm the Premier League stronghold.
Celery & Coconuts: Volume II – Risen from the Dust - The Story of Abbey United and Cambridge United Football Club: 1951-1970
In 1951, Cambridge United were a lowly United Counties League football club, although one with huge ambition. As they prepared for their first season in the Eastern Counties League, they appointed their first full-time player-manager and looked towards the stars.
Supporters and players alike rolled their sleeves up and started work on the rapid rise that in 1970 took them to their promised land: the Football League.
Risen from the Dust, the second volume of Andrew Bennett’s brilliant Celery & Coconuts, the definitive history of an extraordinary club, takes readers on a breathtaking surge upwards through the leagues.
Risen from the Dust reveals what can be achieved by a community determined to succeed.
Celery & Coconuts Volume III: Champagne & Corona - The Story of Cambridge United Football Club 1970-1980
They had combined ambition, hard work and dogged determination to make an unlikely dream come true. Now, having won election to the Football League, Cambridge United players, officials and supporters faced new challenges to go with a new decade.
From 1970, there were forbidding new obstacles to surmount, different opponents to conquer, unfamiliar trials to face, in a world that was changing fast.
There were setbacks but also moments of triumph, and at the end of an amazing decade the club had risen to undreamed of heights – English football’s second tier.
Champagne & Corona, the third volume of the late Andrew Bennett’s exhaustive Celery & Coconuts history of Abbey/Cambridge United, examines the events of the years that truly put the club on the map.
With a foreword by star striker Alan Biley and written in Bennett’s distinctive, expressive style, it is vital reading for any fan of the beautiful game.