October 29th 1977
The recently formed London Road Club arranged its first away trip with a visit
to Ron Atkinson's Cambridge United on this day 40 years ago.
Annual membership cost 20p and the Cambridge coach fare was £1.80
with the coaches leaving Gloucester Green at 11am.
In a match marred by serious crowd trouble, United lost 2-1 after Hugh Curran headed Oxford into a half time lead.
Cambridge won 19 of 23 homes games that season and were promoted as runners up under Big Ron.
The supporters' coaches were stopped by the police outside Cambridge and searched.
Gary Whiting, the Supporters Club secretary wrote in the following weeks'
match programme: " For those of you who travelled on the coaches and who
don't know the reason for the search I can tell you that this was due entirely
to certain "so called supporters" who decided to travel to Cambridge earlier than the rest of our
supporters for the sole purpose of causing wilful destruction in the various town and city centres
en route. It is these louts who hire private coaches, and then proceed to go on the rampage thereby
tarring every Oxford supporter, young or old with the same brush; that of all "soccer vandals".
"Not only were these people satisfied with what they had done in the town centre they decided to carry
it one stage further and wreck the Cambridge ground and I must admit that I was one of the unfortunate
Oxford United officials who had to witness such animalistic actions".
"An investigation after the match revealed that none of those arrested were connected with
the London Road Travel Club, which must prove that we have at least some sensible
supporters who realise that time is rapidly running out."
Cambridge United’s board decided to construct steel and wire mesh fences (soon dubbed ‘cages’)
at both ends of the ground to prevent a recurrence of such behaviour; the view of spectators behind them
was thus restricted. The bill would amount to another £4,000, and the ‘cages’ stayed in place for over ten years.
U's: Burton; Kingston, Bodel, Clarke C, Fogg; Duncan, Jeffrey, Taylor, McGrogan; Foley, Curran
Cambridge: Malcolm Webster, Brendon Batson, Lindsay Smith, Steve Fallon,David Stringer; Trevor Howard,
Steve Spriggs, Sammy Morgan,Graham Watson; Alan Biley, Tom Finney
Att: 5,737