Read the Traveller's notes closely and you'll see that Cambridge United have only recently stepped up to the Eastern Counties League in which they finished 4th in that 1954/55 season. And, given what we've recently been saying about the supporters' clubs of those days, there's a few paragraphs about the role played by fans in building up Cambridge United from virtually nothing.
Just as Oxford United were still known as Headington United (away to Norwich that day), Cambridge United had once been called Abbey United. The club was to progress to the Southern League by 1958 where it remained for twelve seasons before being elected to the Football League in 1970.
Indeed, it's one of the game's curiosities as to how the football histories of Cambridge and Oxford mirror each other so closely: two ambitious non-league clubs who are elected to the Football League where - for most of the time - they punch above their weights before slipping down to the Conference almost at the same time.
Each city also has a second club called "City"; witness Oxford City's visit to Burton Albion in the FA Cup next Sunday. Cambridge's other club - then in the process of dropping the title of Cambridge Town following the granting of city status in the early 1950s - was arguably the bigger at that time and played in the Athenian League. This, in theory anyway, made United semi-professional and City amateur.
Cambridge City - struggling these days and now overshadowed by Histon - eventually turned professional themselves and met up with Cambridge United in the Southern League. Here's the final table from 1962/63 when 11,500 saw the game between the two clubs at Cambridge City's ground:
Timbo asks how the other non-league clubs did that day. Frome - in a tie that is probably the biggest FA Cup match to be played in that neck of the woods (until Paulton meet Norwich next week!) - lost 3-0 to the Orient. Barnstaple (who'd beaten Yeovil in the previous round) were beaten 4-1 by Bournemouth just as, four years later, they lost to Exeter City in the first round.
The shock - from those ties listed on the half-time scoreboard - was Walthamstow Avenue's 4-0 win over QPR in a second replay at Highbury.
Also note the presence of Nuneaton Borough who we beat in the first round in 1971/72 when their supporters appeared to make up half of the 5,800 crowd. The Borough went bust a year or two back but the town's new club - Nuneaton Town (which everyone still calls "the Borough") - have their own big day on Saturday when they play Exeter City.
That'll be some occasion and there was even a Borough-supporting train manager on my Cross Country service the other day seeking out Exeter City supporters for a spot of "banter". I duly pointed him in the direction of one of duty station managers at Plymouth and wished him all the best. With luck there will be a successor to the incessant Nuneaton bell-ringer of 1971 making sure the locals get into our friends' faces....
