The earliest record of football in Cambridgeshire is noted in the Cambridge University records of 1579. We read that a match played at Chesterton between townspeople and University students ended in a violent brawl and caused the Vice-Chancellor to issue a decree forbidding them to play footeball” outside of college grounds!
Needless to say, this did not deter the students and townspeople of Cambridge from further matches for we note from later University records that a further decree was issued in 1634 which was not repealed until 1863, the year the Football Association was formed.
This was then the scene: the Laws of the Game had been drawn up by a group of Cambridge University students in 1846 and posted on the trees which surround Parker’s Piece, a park area in the centre of Cambridge. The game in Cambridge became organised and when students, after graduating, returned as teachers to public schools they carried with them the new code and the game became more regularised.
The Cambridge Rules were accepted, with slight modifications by the FA in 1863, but it required a further 17 years to elapse before Cambridgeshire joined the then existing two dozen counties in association with the national body.
Prior to this, quite a number of clubs were in existence within the County - Sawston had 3 Clubs - Sawston Mill, Rovers and St. Mary’s. In the main, football was played on Parker’s Piece by students rather than townspeople, but gradually in the years preceding 1884 graduates and townsfolk organised clubs so that there were 12 clubs in existence - Albert, Cam, Cassandra, Granta, Old Perseans, Perse School, Printers, Rovers, Newmarket, Linton, Sawston and Swifts. The town Clubs were composed mainly of University graduates and middle class townspeople!
Towards the end of that year a meeting of secretaries and captains was held by Mr. (later Rev.) F.B. Westcott’s rooms in Trinity College, where it was decided to form an Association and the Mayor of Cambridge explained the objects of the Association as: “To develop the game which showed signs of a splendid consummation some day”.
How true were those words which were to mark the birth of the Cambridgeshire Football Association!
Like many other County Associations, full and extensive records have been kept of the Association’s history since then, and the first 100 years are recorded in story form in the Centenary publication, ‘One Hundred Years of County Football’ published by the Association in 1984. As this publication is now in very short supply, it is our intention to reproduce selected extracts on this page in the future.
The Association was always run by Honorary Officers working from home until 1995, when we moved into our first Headquarters at Signet Court, Cambridge. This event coincided with the appointment of the Association’s first full time General Secretary, Roger Pawley together with two part time helpers.
Since then the Association has grown rapidly and we now have ten full time plus part time staff, mainly funded by The Football Association and helped by our excellent Sponsors.
We are virtually an unique County, inasmuch as, with Dorset, we are the only Counties to organise our own Leagues - we have, on Saturdays, 14 mens Leagues playing, of which one is a Supply League. We also run a Girls’ League, and a County Women’s League – all our Leagues are administered from the County offices.
We now have in excess of 400 affiliated Clubs.
We were front runners in supporting Mini Soccer and these Leagues have grown so large during the past few seasons that we now have more than 160 teams playing, mainly on Saturday mornings. Our main Colts League, which has been affiliated for over 25 years is one of the largest in England with over 200 member teams.
Since we have employed Football Development Officers, Girls’ and Women’s Football in Cambridgeshire has grown and we expect this to continue.
With all the extra initiatives we outgrew Signet Court and, thanks to the cooperation of the Cambridge City Football Club, and the support of The Football Association, in 2001 we built a new Headquarters building which has enabled us to carry on our work to encourage more and more people to become involved in football.
However, time rolls on and, as the City Ground has now been sold for future redevelopment we relocated to a new Headquarters Building adjacent to the Histon Football Club Main Stand on Friday, 23rd November 2007. The beginning of a new era for the Association .....