Football in Orwell from 1920s onwards

By Cliff Bullen

 

The players were all local heros

Wimpole men were all for cricket and their main ambition was to get into the first XI, but Orwell was a great footballing village between 1920 and the 1970s.The players were all local heroes in the 1920s and 30s and songs were made up about them.  A supporters’ coach accompanied them to matches, and after their many wins in the various local leagues they would take the trophies round all the pubs of the village and everyone would turn out to celebrate with them.  There was a good turnout for the club’s annual dinner too.

There was a team playing before the 1914-18 war, but not in competitive games. 

The Club was reformed in 1920, with Mr H.G. Peters as President, and entered the Foxton & District League, the trophy for winning the league being the now well known Foster Cup. Orwell were the cup winners from 1922 to 1925 and in the 1928-29 season they won not only the Foster Cup but also the Gransden Cup and Royston Hospital Cup, in which they beat Royston 6 - 5.  Royston were so sure of winning that they had the winners’ medals engraved with their names on them before the match, so Orwell never received any medals and the cup was never played for again!

Mr Peters provided the club with a football pitch on the north side of Hurdleditch Road (next to Petersfield) in the 1930s, and the grass was cut with a horse-drawn mower.  From the 1940s  the pitch moved to the Big Meadow on Fishers Lane, which Mr Peters allowed the club to treat as if it was their own, erecting dressing rooms (a shed from the Atlas Company at Whaddon,) Elsan toilets, and cover for the spectators. Funds for all this were raised through collections at matches, dances in the village hall and from Len Miller’s Christmas raffles which brought in lots of money.  When the club moved to a pitch on the Recreation Ground club members and supporters built the Pavilion there, with dressing rooms and toilet. The Pavilion foundations were designed to carry a second storey to house a clubroom, but this plan was never carried out.

In 1931, in their second year in the Cambridgeshire league, Orwell won Division III, and were promoted to Division I of the newly formed Premier league the following season.  After three times reaching the final of the Cambs. Minor Cup they won it by beating Soham Town on Pye’s ground in 1938.  Local enthusiasm for the team was still as great after the war, when three coaches were needed to take the team and supporters to the final and replay of the Willingham Cup, which Orwell won 3 - 1.

Throughout the 1950s Orwell was  triumphant, winning the Foster Cup in all but two seasons, and fielding a successful Reserve team as well.

As Division I Champions in the Cambs. League 1957/58 the 1st team won 25 of their 26 matches, scoring 136 goals with only 26 scored against them.

In the ‘glory days’ Orwell names predominated in the teams;  Bagstaff, Breed, Bullen, Charter, Dash, Flack, Jude, Miller, Neaves, Parcell,  Robinson, Thompson, Waldock, Wilkins and Wilsher to name a few. 

Interest in playing football, as opposed to watching televised matches, waned in the 1980s and there were only six Orwell residents in the village squad of twenty-three in 1999.  However, the club produced a fine professional footballer in Steven Flack who  played for Exeter until ..., and the team slowly gathered impetus again, first under the guidance of manager Paul Cooper and captain Jim Emery, and more recently .....