1000 League Games At The Abbey: UTAS' Favourite Matches
Saturday marks the 1,000th Football League game at the Abbey Stadium. We've not counted all of them, and a good chunk will be pretty memorable for all the wrong reasons, but there's plenty of standout matches. We asked the UTAS Team and a couple of friends of the pod for their favourite Abbey memories in the Football League (so no Sheffield Weds/Man United cup games, or Stevenage/Halifax/Weymouth from the Conference days either). We'd love to hear yours too, there's details of how to get involved at the end.
Owen: Cambridge 3-1 Colchester, 29 August 1995
A fairly nondescript game to get things started - an early season Tuesday night 3-1 win over Colchester back in August 1995. At a loss for things to do towards the end of the school holidays my dad decided to take me to the Abbey, getting us a couple of tickets in Block B of the Main Stand (where I still sit to this day, despite a brief flirtation with the NRE during the Conference years).
No highlights exist from the game online, so you'll have to take my word for it that United raced into a 2-0 lead with goals from Lee Palmer and Matt Joseph, before Tony Adcock pulled one back just after the break. The real drama came late on though, as not only did Carlo Corazzin put the game beyond reach on the hour mark, but Colchester defender Peter Cawley was sent off right in front of where I was sitting for a second yellow card. Well, that was me hooked. Never before had I seen 3,500 people give the wanker sign to someone in unison, and I decided I wanted a bit of that.
Although there were only 3,500 fans there it felt like double that, and from that moment on I was captivated by the magic of the Abbey Stadium under floodlights. The noise of the crowd, the colourful language, the smell of the chips, and yes, the 'quality' of the football. I sometimes wonder if I'd have come back had they lost, but they didn't and a near 30-year love affair with the U's had begun.
Jordan: Cambridge 7-2 Mansfield, 20 March 1999
My favourite league memory at the Abbey came on 20th March 1999, when promotional rivals Mansfield were put to the sword in a 7-2 victory for Roy MacFarland’s bullish Us on their way to promotion to Division Two.
The whole season was my first experience as a Us fan of us being actually good and with that, the nerves of messing it up (disclaimer: we did mess it up later). The Mansfield tie it was the first of a run-in against other promotion chasing sides and with us top, it felt like it was all ours to lose. The anxiety in the air was quickly vanquished via John Taylor’s early, record breaking goal. The day saw Shaggy notching his 74th goal for United, drawing him level as record goal scorer. Shaggy was one third of one of our most exciting forward lines with Martin Butler and Trevor ‘Bruno’ Benjamin and all three contributed to the fun on the day. Butler bagging a hattrick and Benjamin scoring an audacious chip from outside the box. The massively underrated Neil Mustoe bagged the sixth before Richard Walker completed the rout. I couldn’t tell you anything else Richard Walker ever did for the club.
The game will live long in my memory for two reasons beyond the seven goals. Firstly, as I faced toward the Mansfield fans stood in the rain at the other end of the ground, understanding for the first time how un-fun football could be. But also, for understanding how fun football could be. This was the first time I’d ever experience songs about scoring more than three goals!
Fun fact: March 20th is also my fiancés birthday. Said fiancée is a Brentford fan and my least favourite league experience at the Abbey was that Championship decider in the same season.
Go on, watch the highlights:
Jack: Cambridge 1-0 Plymouth, 9 August 2014
There's been a lot of amazing memories at The Abbey in my relatively short time as a United fan, and some dismal ones too! The 4-3 against Burton was a great goalfest, and the Posh victory was an unmatched atmosphere, well nearly. My choice, and a match I mention very regularly is the first game back in the league against Plymouth Argyle.
There was a buzz around the ground similar to the promotion party and a real feeling we were back where we belonged. A missed penalty and a monumental Sky Sports gaff trying to say Cunnington wasn't going to dampen our spirits, and up stepped big Joshy Coulson to score in front of a jubilant NRE. It was a real marquee day and looking back was a great advert to show people why I go and watch this silly old club.
Russ Greaves: Cambridge 6-1 Rotherham, 9 September 2000
This was my first full season watching the U's and the first time I'd seen us absolutely hammer someone. It hasn't happened too many times since. We were actually 1-0 down inside eight minutes but Ian Ashbee and Tom Youngs each bagged a brace, with Zema Abbey and Jonas Axeldal also on target. When we followed it up with a 4-0 win over Port Vale on the Tuesday, promotion seemed inevitable. That's when the fuel crisis somehow led to our next game at Swindon being postponed, stopping us in full flight. We agonisingly missed out on the top two by just 38 points.
Marc Manning: Cambridge 2-1 Accrinton, 1 October 2016
What makes The Abbey so special are the moments it creates… the ones that are forever etched on to the memory of a U’s fan. We’ve had plenty through the years but the one that sticks for me is the 2-1 win v Accrington in 2016. After a pretty boring first half, the game turned on its head in the dying minutes. A lung-busting run and then a superb cross from a massively unfit Uche Ikpeazu was volleyed in by Piero Mingoia, one of my favourite ever goals. And then the man of the moment stepping up… Will Norris with two penalty saves won the 9-man U’s the game. A real “you had to be there” moment.
Max Rushden: Cambridge 1-0 Halifax, 22 September 1989 & Cambridge 1-0 Port Vale, 22 February 1994
So many great memories. But I would love to know if anyone else can remember two games. One versus Halifax in maybe 1989 when there was a bomb scare and the game as delayed for ages - we won 1-0 with an own goal and I remember how excited I was to be still up at 11pm! The other in a game in the mid 90s against Port Vale (I think) in the snow. Orange ball. Nothing happened until Gary Rowett smashed one into the bottom corner in the 94th minute. #Scenes and #Limbs in the NRE before they even existed...
Noah Brown: Cambridge 2-0 P*sh, 15 April 2023
For a boy who had spent his match days driving to the game with his dad since 2001 listening to BBC Radio Cambridgeshire’s match coverage as we went, it often felt mystifying listening to Edwin Overland et al reporting on Posh’s latest exploits. Names like Conor Washington or Britt Asombalonga and more recently Johnson Clarke-Harris seemed to feature with tedious regularity, with goals and glory aplenty. All the while we were having to make do with Mark Johnson lamenting another goal drought from another striker who just never seemed to quite cut it. Howcome they got Dwight Gayle whilst we had Tom Elliott; where do they find these guys?
All these strikers' names were just that; names. I’d never seen the U’s play our bitterest of rivals in a competitive tie and had to make do with the pseudo-derby’s of Luton and even Histon at a time. That was until the Posh were relegated from the Championship in routine fashion and with the U’s holding on to their League One status with relative ease, the boy who had only heard tales of the enemy via 96FM was finally set to see this striker producing machine in the flesh.
Cut to the final few games of the season still to play. The Posh were pushing for the play-off spots with the U’s seemingly on the brink of relegation. We’d lost at London Road cruelly, an own goal from Lloyd Jones the difference. Neither side really showed up that day; a dress rehearsal for the clutch derby to end all derby’s at the Abbey. Considering the stakes, we looked unburdened by any sense of impending doom. The man who’d been through it all with us; Harrison Dunk, scored just before half-time whistle from a corner and a striker with genuine quality; Sam Smith, put the game to bed in the second. We stayed up by a point and the Posh lost out in the play-offs in the most spectacular fashion. It was that game that made us believe, I think. Twenty-two enduring the likes of Onabujie and Slew now seemed a fleeting memory with the likes of Smith and Knibbs happily taking their place. Bliss.
Julian: Cambridge 1-1 Oxford, 7 August 2021
From the literally thousands of games available, and within that a couple of decent wins, you’re probably thinking why would I choose a draw. But this game to me was notable not in the performance or the result, but in its significance to the fanbase.
Similar to Jack’s first game back in the league, this was our first game back in League One - but not just that, it was also our first game back since Covid. Over that equally brilliant and difficult year, we’d fallen in love with a team from the confines of our own living rooms. A 30 goal a season striker the like of which we’d never seen, our homegrown manager, a certain Irish Messi… all becoming a rather low budget TV show. Gone were those match day rituals, this was football as we’d never known it before.
It always felt slightly bitter sweet we missed seeing one of the most successful seasons in our club’s history in person. But this day against Oxford, it was all worth it. There we were back, under those iconic floodlights and ramshackle stands, seeing Wes Hoolahan in the flesh for the first time. A first half Oxford goal cancelled out by a Joe Ironside penalty, one point in the bag, a year of hope for survival awaited. But for that afternoon it almost didn’t matter, it was just the warm, comforting embrace of the Abbey that we all wanted - it was home again.
What's your favourite Football League game at the Abbey? Email us or drop us a DM on Twitter (or whatever they're calling it these days) with a couple of paragraphs and we'll print a selection of the best.