Former Cambridge United, Cambridge City and West Brom player Brian Hart dies at 84
Former Cambridge United and Cambridge City football Brian Hart has died at the age of 84.
He was the first United player to earn international honours when selected for England Youth in 1959 at a time when the club only just progressed from the Eastern Counties League to the Southern League.
It was a rare achievement for a youngster at a non-League club to be chosen to represent England.
Brian was born in Cambridge in 1941 and grew up in Horningsea, where his parents ran a shop and post office. As a boy, he often accompanied his father, a U’s fan, to the Abbey stadium.
His footballing skills were noted while he was at Bottisham Village College and manager Bert Johnson invited him to join the United ground staff.
He then played an important role in the 1958-59 United youth team that won every game they played, except for a defeat in the FA Youth Cup. The team scored more than 300 goals and won three trophies.
Brian was marked by future England player and manager Terry Venables when he played that season in the Cambridgeshire side that played London at Stamford Bridge in the semi-finals of the FA County Youth Cup.
And it was that year that he was chosen to play for England. Although international players including Wilf Mannion, with whom Brian trained, had played for United before, he was the first to be selected while at the club.
He played against the Republic of Ireland at Anfield on 9 May 1959, scoring with a header in the tenth minute and setting up two more goals in a 5-0 win.
Brian had already appeared for United’s first team by then, when he played in an East Anglian Cup tie against Norwich City on 27 October 1958 that was abandoned because of fog. He also played in the rearranged game the following March.
In August 1959, He went for trials with West Ham United and Leicester City in August 1959 before signing professional forms for West Brom at the age of 18, spending three years at the Hawthorns, during which time he married Sheila in 1962.
He then moved to Nuneaton, scoring 23 goals in 1962-63. He was Nuneaton’s leading scorer at the time when he returned to Cambridge to sign for City in January 1965.
He scored twice the following month when City won the Fenland Cup and played a total of 62 games for the Lilywhites first team and reserves, including several against United.
He scored 14 goals for City before moving on to Wellington, where he enjoyed his most successful period.
He played for the club, which changed its name to Telford, at Wembley in two FA Trophy finals. They lost 2-0 to Macclesfield Town in 1970 but beat Hillingdon Borough 3-2 a year later.
United described him as a “a creative player of great football intelligence, he also had a goalscoring knack that made him a favourite at every one of those clubs”.
Brian’s wife Sheila died in 2018. After spending time in a care home, he died peacefully on 18 May, surrounded by family members. He is survived by a daughter, a son and two grandchildren.