The U's-letter: Issue 34

Your fortnightly update of goings-on at the Abbey

Mar 13, 2026

The only place to start is with an apology. To all you UTAS readers and listeners who enjoy reading the U’s-letters, usually every week, sorry! It’s been an age since we last had the time to put one together, and I can’t imagine how you’ve coped. The good news is the reason we haven’t had time is because of all the brilliant extra content we’ve been delivering for our treasured Coconut Tier subscribers.

I know we go on about it a lot, but there really is so much good content available there for just £5 a month, less than the price of a pint. You’ll get extra pods (including recent interviews with Knight, Bonner and Josh Coulson), a written preview and report of every league game, and weekly feature articles (including a great piece on the future of our young players by Matt Gooding recently).

As we’ve got a lot of catching up to do, this week’s newsletter is going to be a bit of a summary of the last month, including a lot of different opposition views to get a bit of a sense of how other fans are seeing the U’s as we head into the business end of the season. Let’s get into it…

What’s New? 📰

Some kick-off time movements you’ll have seen: Salford at home is now an early kick, and Swindon at home is now Thursday at 8pm before Easter weekend.
The latest pod is here to listen to, previewing Saturday’s game alongside Gills In The Blood:

At The Match ✍️

Accrington 1-1 U’s: 7th March 2026

Over all the years which everyone reading this will have followed football, you’ll have found, like me, that there are instinctive reactions to certain results. You might like to describe a 2-0 home win as “comfortable”, or a 4-0 away loss as “embarrassing”. A 0-0 draw as “mind-numbingly dull” is a nice one. Even if it wasn’t, even if the context of the season or the game itself tells you something different, we have this kind of agreed lexicon that we often turn to when we’re talking about results of football matches.
In a scenario where Team A, flying high towards the top of the division, travels away to Team B, a lower mid-table but stubborn side, and comes from behind to draw 1-1, on a day where they had over 75% possession and three times as many shots, you might flick through your football dictionary and see: “two dropped, or one gained?”.
More often that not, to be honest, you don’t need the match details to be that specific. Cambridge United are Team A in this scenario, if you hadn’t guessed, and while it was a legitimate conversation after the Accrington draw, it was also at the forefront of everyone’s mind after the Milton Keynes result, despite the fact they probably outplayed us and might well end up being crowned champions with the division’s most expensively assembled squad.
Draws are often like that, you often feel like you’re left wanting for me. But the reality is there are good ones, and bad ones. And, confusingly, I think United are now in a situation where there can be bad draws on good afternoons. Or at least, Saturday turned into a good afternoon for a bad draw.

Read in full:

View From The Away End 🧐

A round-up of recent games from the eyes of opposition fans, starting from our most recent game and going backwards…

MK Dons - MK1 Podcast

From an MK Dons perspective it felt like a really tough game against a well-organised Cambridge side.
You made it difficult for us to create a bunch of chances, despite the two big ones we had and when Shayne Lavery put you ahead it honestly looked like the points might be staying in Cambridge.
Fair play to the Dons for sticking at it though, we kept pushing and the late penalty from Aaron Collins was a big moment right at the end. In truth, a draw probably wasn’t the worst result for either side as it was pretty evenly contested overall.
Cambridge looked a strong outfit: disciplined, competitive and clearly tough to break down. It felt like the kind of game between two sides who might determine the main challengers to Bromley at the top and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a fixture that is significant later in the campaign.

Newport County - 1912 Exiles

Saturday was a hard one to judge. On the one hand, County battled well to keep it goalless for so long, and our fans had perhaps started to think we might secure a well-earned point and clean sheet against a decent side. But for the millionth, billionth time this season, a couple of defensive brainfarts meant we conceded cheap goals in quick succession and that was that. Cambridge will look on it as a routine win, as well they might, whilst for County it’s yet another game where the quality we did have couldn’t last for 90 minutes and we were made to pay for a lack of strength in depth.
In terms of Cambridge, you looked solid enough. Hard to say at this point whether you’re a good shout for promotion or not. Like a lot of sides we’ve faced this season, it’ll depend on just how consistent you can be. You certainly weren’t the best sides we’ve seen in the Fourth Division this year, but the sides who we DID think stood out (Gillingham, Grimsby) can also be absolute bobbins on their day too, whereas some of the more workaday teams (Bromley, Swindon) are doing better in the league. The lesson surely is that it’s better to be an 8/10 team every week than a 10/10 one week and a 6/10 another. Not sure whether that’s helpful or not!

Colchester United - Beyond The Barside

Cambridge looked compact and difficult to break down throughout, showing why they’re such a tough side to face. Both of the goals probably could’ve been dealt with better from a defensive perspective, which is frustrating for us as I’m sure it is for you, but overall I was pleased with how Colchester performed against a strong Cambridge team. Ben Knight in particular looked very sharp for you and caused problems, although I don’t think I can recall Apperè having a touch of the ball.

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Opposition Preview 🔮

Gillingham (H) - 16th Place - Saturday 14th March

Last 5 (all comps): LDWLL - The latest one being a 5-1 battering by MK at home.
Last time out: Gills 1-1 U’s, 26th December 2025. A point that should’ve been three, really.
Our H2H: P25, W7, D3, L15. Fair to say they’ve had the upper hand historically.
Manager: Gareth Ainsworth. We know all about his teams, expect him to make it very difficult
One to watch: Bradley Dack, carries plenty of experience and quality.
Former U’s players: Max Clark, Conor Masterson.

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Under The Other Stands 🏟️

It’s a five horse race at the top - or is it six, after Salford won in midweek to stay in touch, just four points behind us having played a game more. MK look very ominous, while Bromley are drawing a lot of games at the moment – however, they’re not losing them. Even with star striker Michael Cheek injured, they look like they have the staying power.
The play off race is getting interesting, four points separating Grimsby in 7th and Colchester in 12th. Plenty of good teams on their days there, can they just make it their day often enough?
And at the bottom, Shrews have broken away from trouble, and it feels like Bristol Rovers have done enough already. Crawley, Harrogate, Barrow and Newport are in a real fight to stay afloat, it might not take much.

Stats Corner 🔢

Before beating Shrewsbury in January, we went 17 league Tuesdays in a row without a win at home: 11 scored, 29 conceded, 5 draws and 12 defeats. Impressively, 4 of those games against Wycombe (2 draws, 2 losses)
In last year’s relegation season not a single Cambridge United defender scored more than once in League One; Watts has scored six goals, and scored twice in eleven minutes against Tranmere in January.
Did you know that 49% of players to ever make a Premier League appearance have played in a game either alongside or against James Milner?

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