Tales From Our European Playground

Posted on June 2, 2025 by Chris Axon

Chelsea vs. Real Betis : 28 May 2025.

“Tyrique George – aha.

Running down the wing – aha.

Hear the Chelsea sing – aha.

We are going to Wroclaw.

Tyrique George – aha.

Running down the wing – aha.

Hear the Chelsea sing – aha.

We are going to Wroclaw.

Tyrique George – aha.

Running down the wing – aha.

Hear the Chelsea sing – aha.

We are going to Wroclaw.

Tyrique George – aha.

Running down the wing – aha.

Hear the Chelsea sing – aha.

We are going to Wroclaw.

Tyrique George – aha.

Running down the wing – aha.

Hear the Chelsea sing – aha.

We are going to Wroclaw.

Tyrique George – aha.

Running down the wing – aha.

Hear the Chelsea sing – aha.

We are going to Wroclaw.”

Such was the fervour at about 9.45pm on the evening before the game against Spain’s Real Betis, that this song was sung repeatedly again and again, maybe for ten minutes or more. It is probably the reason why my voice was croaking at odd intervals for the next few days, including at work on the Friday.

We had assembled in the picturesque, photogenic and historic city of Wroclaw from all parts of the world – as an example I knew of five friends from Australia, five friends from California, five friends from New York, two friends from Bangkok – and as the old saying goes, the clans were gathering.

We were in Wroclaw.

I often preface a European Tale with the question, “so where does this story start?” and on this occasion there are a few possibilities.

Did the story start the day before, on Monday 26 May when I found myself nearing Bournemouth International Airport at about 7pm, with PD alongside me, and Parky alongside Salisbury Steve in the back seats?

“Honestly, you’d never know that we were approaching an international airport, winding our way through these narrow lanes and roads.”

Parky immediately chimed in.

“Steady on, Chris, you’re on the runway.”

Howls of laughter followed.

Did the story begin around two months ago when we decided to gamble on purchasing return flights from Bournemouth to Wroclaw?

Did the story begin with the draw for the odd group phase, those six games against individual teams with – for the first time for us – no home and away scenarios.

Did the story begin with the draw for the preliminary round of jousting before we got involved when it seemed odd for us to be playing the losing team out of Sporting Braga and Servette?

It might have started when Manchester United beat Manchester City in the 2024 FA Cup Final, thus pushing us into the previously ridiculed UEFA Europa Conference.

Maybe this Chelsea and Real Betis story began on Thursday 5 March 1998.

We were drawn away against Betis in the quarterfinals of the European Cup Winners’ Cup that season, and five of us had booked ourselves on a short three-day trip. I travelled up from Frome with my oldest Chelsea mate Glenn, and we met up with Paul from Brighton, and brothers Daryl and Neil, from near Southend and Guernsey respectively.

Ruud Gullit had been sacked on 12 February and the job of managing an entertaining but, at times, complacent Chelsea team was given to another crowd favourite Gianluca Vialli. This was, we were sure, a tricky proposition. Their star players were Finidi George and Alfonso.

We left early on the Wednesday and enjoyed a fantastic pub-crawl alongside the Guadalquivir River in the late morning and afternoon. We consumed many pints of “Cruzcampo” and one or two pints of “Guinness” in memory of Matthew Harding as we hit an Irish bar near the towering Cathedral. Walking our boozy selves back through the cramped streets of Seville to our hotel is a great memory even after all these years. A quick change of gear in the evening and then yet more bar hopping, interspersed with discussions of our chances against Middlesbrough in the imminent Coca-Cola Cup Final, the ethics of bullfighting, the legacy of Matthew Harding, the relative merits of The Jam and The Smiths, plus so much laughter that my smile-muscles are still hurting now.

On the late walk back to the hotel, we let the good people of Seville know that Tommy Baldwin was, indeed, the leader of the team.

On the Thursday, we bar-hopped again, at an easier pace, and popped over to visit the stadium of Sevilla – Estadio Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán – which seemed a far more impressive stadium than Estadio Benito Villamarin, Betis’ home pad. In one bar, I remember Paul pointing out Babs to me, the storied leader of The Shed in the ‘seventies. In a restaurant, I enjoyed my first-ever paella.

I remembered working with a Real Betis fan in Trowbridge. He told me they were the working-class team of the city.

We were deposited in the away end of the rather dusty away end very early ahead of the game that only began at 9.30pm. I hoisted my “VINCI PER NOI” flag and we waited for others to join us. Back in those days, our travelling away support was fearsome, and dominated by geezers in their thirties. We had a big mob in the seats to our left, plus a few thousand in the single-tiered away end. The gate that night was 31,000 and I suspect we had around 3,500 there.

With a nice piece of timing, it was my three-hundredth Chelsea game.

We got out of the starting blocks so well, and two very similar goals from Tore André Flo – right in front of us – gave us a magical 2-0 lead in the first twelve minutes. We were in heaven. Chelsea withstood a Betis onslaught in the second half but despite that man Alfonso scoring, we held on to a 2-1 win.

After the game, we went straight back to the airport and caught a flight home. We had only been in the city for about forty hours, but it seemed much longer.

In the home leg, we easily won 3-1.

We would meet again in the 2005/6 Champions League campaign, winning 4-0 at home but losing 0-1 away. I did not return to Seville that year but saw the home leg.

The game in Wroclaw would, therefore, be my fourth game against them.

Before all this, maybe we have another starting point, for me at least. In late September 1994, our first UEFA game of any description in twenty-three – count’em – years saw Chelsea visit the Bohemian town of Jablonec on the Czech Republic border with Poland. Having beaten the Prague team Viktoria Zizkov 4-2 in a scintillating and exhilarating night in the Stamford Bridge rain, we now faced the return leg in a town seventy miles from Prague. Jablonec was chosen to try to stop crowd disorder. Dimitri Kharin saved a penalty, and we drew 0-0, and it was my first-ever European jaunt with Chelsea Football Club.

Ironically, Jablonec is just one hundred and five miles from Wroclaw.

You could say that in almost thirty-one years, we had travelled just one-hundred and five miles.

Enough of these history lessons.

On the Monday, I spent some time in the morning writing up my match report for the previous day’s game against Nottingham Forest.

Alas, after the euphoria at the City Ground, I was met with more sadness. I happened to read on “Facebook” that another Chelsea friend from our little part of Stamford Bridge had recently passed away.

For the second time in around two weeks, I was heartbroken.

I had known Rousey for years. He sat in the row behind me from 1997, and he was a great character. He habitually came in five minutes late at ever game and we would always give each other a “thumbs up” on his arrival. I remember a night out in Norwich after a 3-1 win in March 2005 when he joined Glenn, Frank and me in a nightclub, and he danced like a loon. He crashed that night on the floor of Glenn’s B&B room. Rousey especially loved his European adventures with Chelsea, and he was booked on this trip to Wroclaw. Alas, his great friend Lee would be travelling with an empty seat next to him.

RIP Stephen Rouse.

The flight to Wroclaw, featuring a few familiar faces from the south and west of England, was delayed by around half-an-hour, and we were further delayed by an aborted landing. We were not far away from touching down when the plane rose steeply. We were to hear from the pilot that another plane had been spotted on, or near, the runway.

Thankfully, we were back on terra firma ten minutes later.

The only other aborted landing I have known was when we were seconds away from landing in Oslo in Norway and were diverted to Gothenburg in Sweden. But that’s another Chelsea story.

Alas, a ridiculous wait at passport control – a full ninety-minutes, thankfully no extra-time and penalties – meant that we did not reach our apartment to the east of the city centre until 3am after dropping Steve off at his apartment en route.

Our late arrival meant that we didn’t rise too early on the Tuesday. We wandered off to drink some ridiculously strong coffee in a local café at 10.30am, and I then booked an Uber to take us into the city. It was a beautiful and sunny day. We had a little walk around and soon found ourselves on the bench seats outside a restaurant called “Chatka” just to the north of the main square. It was 12.30pm.

We ordered some lagers – “Ksiazece” – and some food soon after.

Goulash, dumplings and pickled cucumbers.

When in Rome.

Lo and behold, many friends happened to spot us as they walked past, quite unplanned, and they joined us for beers. One of the lads, Ben, has the honour of coming up with the Tyrique George song.

At about 4pm, we sidled up to the main square and joined around two-hundred Chelsea outside one of the many bars, the Breslauer, that lined the square. There were hugs from many, and smiles and handshakes too. We were in our element. There were many Betis fans camped in the adjacent bar. There was only singing and smiles. No trouble.

At 7pm, we heard that others were off to a place called “The Guinness Bar”, just a short hop away, so we trotted over. Here, we bumped into more good friends. Again, the mood was fine, and there were a gaggle of Real Betis fans drinking, and singing, in a bar opposite.

At 7.30pm, the mood quickly changed. With absolutely no warning, around twenty lads in mainly black, some with their faces covered, appeared from nowhere and quickly aimed beer bottles, glasses and chairs at us. The sound of breaking glass filled the early evening air. A bottle of beer crashed into my camera bag, and I recovered it. Thankfully, nothing was broken. A shard of glass hit my right hand and for a moment I was bloodied. I held my hand up to protect my eyes, but I was still sat at my seat. I think that the surprise of it all had stunned me. By standing up, maybe I thought I might be a bigger target.

Thankfully, it was all over in twenty seconds.

PD had received cuts to his leg, but one lad was severely cut on his forehead.

Within minutes, the shards of broken glass were being swept up by the bar staff and it was back to business, as if nothing had happened. The local police appeared then disappeared.

My immediate thoughts were that this was an attack on us by the locals, the local Slask Wroclaw fans, out to defend their own turf, out to make a name for themselves against the once notorious Chelsea.

I went over to talk to some residual Betis fans, and they confirmed with me that the attackers were not Spanish lads.

I was reminded how I feared meeting Legia Warsaw in the final. I could only imagine how messy that might have been. We would have been run ragged from arsehole to breakfast time. Though, thankfully and rather oddly, the quarter final in Warsaw seemed to pass without incident.

The drinking continued. We were joined by friends from near and far. The Tyrique George song was the star of the night, but there were others too.

We were still drinking at midnight, but I think we headed for home soon after.

It had been, almost, a twelve-hour sesh.

Fackinell.

Again, we rested on Wednesday morning after our escapades on Tuesday, leaving the spacious apartment at 12.30pm. Another cab into the city, and we plotted up at “Chatka” again. Alas, it was raining hard, so we were forced inside. The restaurant was very different on match-day. Yesterday, there were no Betis supporters. Today, it was full of them.

I began with a soft drink, as did Steve, but after ordering some ribs with new potatoes and pickled vegetables, I joined PD and LP with the lagers. Other friends arrived and joined us, including the Kent Boys from “The Eight Bells”, but also Michelle from Huntingdon Beach in California, who I had promised Johnny Dozen I would look after. Michelle had arrived late on the Tuesday and called in at 2.30pm.

The Betis crowd were full of song, and I thought it ironic that we rallied with our own Spanish hit.

“Cucurella. Cucurella. He eats paella, he drinks Estrella, his hair’s fucking massive.”

To say they all looked bemused would be an understatement.

We had heard, through the grapevine, that there had been tear gas used on some Chelsea supporters the previous night, plus water cannons in the main square during the morning.

At about 4pm we walked the short distance to “Doctor’s Bar” – the rain now stopped – to join up with Mike, Dom, Paul and Steve from New York, plus mates from Bulgaria and Czechia too. The beers were going down well, and the singing continued.

At around 6.30pm, we gathered the troops and set off to find a tram to take us to the stadium. A cab sped past, and Clive – my mate from The Sleepy Hollow – yelled obscenities at us.

That made me laugh. What a small world.

We waited in vain at the first designated stop, as all the trams were full, so headed off to find another marshalling point.

Michelle led the way, and we followed on.

It was her finest hour.

We alighted near the stadium just before 8pm, and most of us scampered off to a nearby wooded area to water the flowers. Then, the slow walk to the stadium. We were allocated the southern end. Out came the cameras.

I was amazed how many people we recognised. There always were concerns that we would be well-outnumbered by the Spaniards. It was, after all, their very first European Final. By contrast, this was our eighth, not including the Super Cups. And let’s be honest, many in the Chelsea support have been relatively derisory about our participation in this trophy. And I can understand that.

If the Champions League is the UEFA equivalent of the FA Cup and the Europa League is the equivalent of the League Cup, then what on earth is the equivalent of the Europa Conference?

At times it has felt like the Play-Off Final to get into the Football League.

At least the 2025 final has given it some gravitas with Chelsea and Real Betis involved.

Personally, I saw no point in this competition when it arrived in 2021. One of my favourite expressions in life is “less is more” but both UEFA and FIFA quite obviously think “more is more.” The expanded Champions League, the expanded Europa League, and now an unnecessary third UEFA trophy, and forty-eight nations in the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Where will it bloody end? A cup for everybody?

Everyone wins. Everyone wins!

I hate modern football.

But here we all were.

Sophie, Andy and Jonesy from Nuneaton, Jason from Swanage, George from Czechia, Orlin and Alex from Sofia, Youth and Seb from Atherstone, Kimberley and Nick from Fresno, Mike, Frank, Dom, Paul and Steve from New York, Carl and Ryan from Stoke, Alan from Penge, Pauline and Mick from Benidorm, Russ from Melbourne, Rich from Cheltenham, Martin from Gloucester, Martin and Bob from Hersham, Shari, Chris and Skippy from Brisbane, Julie and Tim from South Gloucestershire, Luke, Aroha and Archie from Harrow, Daryl from South Benfleet, Rich from Loughborough, Della and Mick from Borstal, Clive from Bexhill, Les from Melksham, Julie and Burger from Stafford, Donna from Wincanton, Vajananan and Paul from Bangkok, Ben from Baton Rouge, Paul, Ali and Nick from Reading, James from Frankfurt, Andy and Josh from Orange County, Scott from Fylde, Michelle and Dane from Bracknell, John from Ascot, Liz and Pete from Farnborough, Gary from Norbury, Mick from Huddersfield, Even from Norway, Leigh and Darren from Basingstoke, Tommie from Porthmadog, Jason from Dallas, Michelle from Huntingdon Beach, Steve from Salisbury, Parky from Holt, PD from Frome and me from Mells, plus hundreds more from various parts of London.

Why were we here?

To see us win it all. Again.

Our tickets were effectively QR codes, and they had appeared on our phones while we were huddled tightly together in “Chatka” a few hours previously. Thankfully, they had not disappeared. Getting in was easy. Despite warnings about identity checks, there were none. I had planned my camera strategy and decided not to risk my zoom lens. Instead, my SLR just had a wide-angle lens attached. The security guy didn’t like this at first, but after a little persuasion he allowed me, and it, in.

Result.

I managed to coerce some chap to take a photo of the four of us one more time; friends through geography, football and fate…Chris, Paul, Steve, Glenn…before we split up. Parky and I were in the 45-euro section in the third level, the others in the 25-euro section in the first level. I hung back with Parky, and he allowed me to indulge myself in one of my favourite pastimes; photographing the pre-match scene, stadium architecture, logos, colours, some of the small stuff that others might miss. Like in Munich in 2012, the sun was slowly setting in the west.

The exterior of the stadium, like so many these days, is sheathed in plastic panels, thus hiding the guts of the structure to the outside world. I have seen better stadia, I have seen worse. Inside, a very roomy concourse, full of supporters, but not many in blue.

Even at major Cup Finals, we still don’t really do colours.

Many were lining up for food and drinks. Although I was starving, I didn’t fancy queuing. As luck would have it, Clive – from the taxi – appeared out of nowhere and heroically shared his mushroom pizza slice with Parky and I. He saved the day.

The slow ascent to the very top, Section 332.

Once inside, I immediately liked the stadium. Steep terracing, a nice size, all very compact with no wasted space. There were no real quirky features, but it did the job.

Our squad, split into two, the starting eleven and the substitutes, were down below us in our corner, dressed in pink tops, going through their drills.

I was five rows from the very rear, and Parky was close by in the row behind.

I saw that there was a long yellow banner pinned on the fence in front of the Chelsea section.

“OUR BLOOD IS BLUE AND WE WILL LEAVE YOU NEVER.”

It was obviously part of a pre-game tifo display. There was a plain blue plastic flag planted in my seat. Would I be tempted to wave it? I saw no reason why not; I am not that much of a curmudgeon.

The minutes ticked by.

There seemed to be way more Betis fans in the arena, easily marked by their green shirts and scarves and hats. They seemed to especially enjoy tying flags around their waist, like latter day Bay City Rollers fans, or something.

The Chelsea section was dotted with latter day casuals with the usual labels on display, mixed in with occasional replica shirts.

Me? I was a mixture of Boss and Lacoste – lucky brands from previous UEFA finals – but wore a pair of new blue and yellow Nike Cortez trainers for the first time.

I needed the light rain jacket that I was wearing. It was getting colder.

“Blue Is The Colour” rang out and boy did we all join in.

Fantastic.

The plastic flags were waved with gusto. The “London’s First London’s Finest” crowd- surfer appeared down below. At least it was the right way round and not back to front like in Amsterdam in 2013.

It just felt that we were mightily outnumbered. I spotted a block of fifty empty seats in the side stand to my right. Immediately around me were a few empty ones.

It saddened me that we – a huge club now – could not sell our 12,000 seats.

It looked like Betis had sold their 12,000 but had gone the extra mile and hoovered up most of the spare neutral or corporate seats, just like United did at Wembley in 1994 and we did at Wembley in 1997.

The desire was seemingly with them, not us.

Sigh.

Time moved on and we were getting close to the kick-off now.

The Betis fans had been far noisier than us up to this point and as their club anthem rang out, they unveiled a huge tifo to go with their banner at the base of their tier.

“NO BUSCO GLORIA PERECEDERA, SINO LA DE TU NOMBRE.”

“I SEEK NOT PERISHABLE GLORY, BUT THAT OF YOUR NAME.”

On the pitch, images of players of both teams moved around on giant displays, and music boomed around the stadium.

At last, the two teams appeared from my stand to the left. The Betis end turned green once more, with virtually everyone holding their scarves horizontally above their heads. This always used to impress me as a child, but as it just isn’t a Chelsea thing, it hasn’t the same effect these days. The sun turned the sky bronze, just visible twixt stand and roof.

Time to check the team again.

Jorgensen

Gusto – Chalobah – Badiashile – Cucurella

Caicedo – Fernandez

Neto – Palmer – Madueke

Jackson

Immediate questions from me to Enzo Maresca.

Why Malo Gusto and not Reece James?

Why Benoit Badiashile and not Levi Colwill?

Also, Robert Sanchez is our number one ‘keeper. Now, even though Jorgensen has started virtually all these Conference League games and the manager clearly wanted to stay loyal to him, this is a final after all.

I wasn’t convinced this was our strongest team. But I had no issues with Nicolas Jackson up top. He does offer a presence and allows Neto to do his thing on the right.

At 9pm in Lower Silesia, the 2025 Europa Conference Final began.

I really liked the thin stripes of the Real Betis jerseys. Within a few minutes, with that huge bank of green facing me, I experienced flashbacks to Abu Dhabi when we faced Palmeiras. We were outnumbered there but were victorious. It felt so strange to be standing by myself even though Parky was a few yards away.

On the touchline, the wily old fox Manuel Pelligrini, in a deep green top.

Enzo Maresca, in black not so far away from him.

They were together at West Ham United.

The place was noisy all right, and most of it came from the northern end. The Spaniards began strongly, attacking with pace at our back line. A cross from Antony, booed by many of us during the introductions for his Manchester United past, sent over a cross that thankfully didn’t trouble Jorgensen. At the other end, Palmer forced a save from Adrian, who seemed to be spared much booing despite his West Ham United and Liverpool past.

Alas, on just nine minutes, Malo Gusto’s pass was chased down. The ball was played to Isco, and his square pass found Ezzalzouli. From an angle, he steered the ball past Jorgensen and the ball nestled inside the nearest corner to me to Jorgensen’s left.

The green sections – maybe two-thirds of those inside – erupted with a blast of noise that chilled me to the bone.

Four minutes later, Joregensen saved well, but had to readjust his feet to do so; a long-range effort from Marc Bartra was tipped over, our ‘keeper arching himself back to save dramatically.

Just after, our first loud and united chant of the night punctured the Wroclaw night.

“CAM ON CHOWLSEA. CAM ON CHOWLSEA. CAM ON CHOWLSEA. CAM ON CHOWLSEA.”

We gained a foothold and dominated possession, but without managing to really force an effort on Adrian’s goal. We were slow and pedestrian, and the Betis fans were still making most of the noise.

We looked poor.

There had been plenty of hype about us completing an expanded set of European trophies on this night. In fact, from the very start of the campaign, it was expected that we would win this competition. Yet, as the first half continued, the Spanish team were looking far more likely to be victorious.

Throughout this Europa Conference campaign, I kept commenting how the colour green kept cropping up. Whereas the Champions League brand colour is blue and the Europa League is orange, the Europa Conference is green. We played Panathinaikos and Shamrock Rovers in the group phase, we played Legia in the quarters, who have a predominantly green badge, we were playing Real Betis in the final in a stadium whose home team play in green, and whose seats were all green.

But maybe it was us who were green in this match. It certainly felt like it.

Betis created a couple of chances, and we could only wish for the same. One shot from them thankfully flashed high over the bar.

Our “Amazing Grace” chant tried to lift our players.

“Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea.”

On thirty-four minutes, Neto cut in but shot over. Was this only our second shot of the game? I thought so.

The two wingers Madueke and Neto swapped flanks for the final few minutes of a very lacklustre first half. On forty-three minutes, Enzo was sent through, but Adrian reached the ball first. One minute of injury time was signalled and an Enzo shot went off for a corner. We had really dominated the possession but had created so very little.

Did I really detect boos from some in the Chelsea section at the end of the first half?

Oh boy.

At half-time, I went for a small wander into the concourse underneath us in the third level. Everyone was so miserable. I moaned to a couple of friends about the team selection. Night had fallen, and the stadium shell was lit up with blue lights, or at least at our end. I suspected the northern end to be green.

It was an almost cathartic experience to be exposed to so much blue. It was as if my soul needed it.

On returning to my seat, I saw that Parky had disappeared, but I wanted him to come and sit next to me in the spare seat to my right.

Thank heavens, Reece James replaced the poor Gusto at half-time. All at once, it seemed we had regained our purpose. Our Reece soon thumped in a cross into the mixer, but it evaded everyone.

On fifty-four minutes, the improving Madueke sent over a cross towards Jackson, but he was clattered by Adrian.

From the corner, James shot at goal was deflected wide. Soon after, Jackson shot but did not threaten Adrian.

We were back in this now and our noise levels, at last, rose.

On sixty-one minutes, two more changes.

Levi Colwill for Badiashile.

Jadon Sancho for Neto.

No complaints from me.

We pushed on.

On sixty-five minutes, Palmer took hold of the game. He had been relatively quiet, but from a deep position he turned and ran at the Betis defence. He stopped, gained a yard of space, and with his exquisite wand of a left foot, curled a ball in to meet the little leap from Enzo. Our Argentinian did not have to rise too highly, but his header down was just perfection. We saw the net ripple and I yelled out in joy.

Snap, snap, snap, snap as our Argentinian raced away in front of the Chelsea hordes. He ran over to the corner, and how I wished I was over there too.

We were level.

GET IN.

Not long after, a shot from Palmer but a save.

Chelsea were roaring now while Betis were quiet.

On seventy minutes, with Palmer in possession in the corner down below me, I yelled out –

“Go on Cole. Bit of magic.”

He didn’t let me down.

For a moment, time seemed to stand still. His marker seemed mesmerized. Palmer spun away and curled a ball into the box with his right foot, and the cross was met by Jackson who simply could not miss.

We erupted again.

Snap, snap, snap, snap as Jackson ran away to my left and collapsed on the floor by the corner flag. The substitutes celebrated with the players, what a glorious sight.

We were ahead.

Fackinell.

Our end boomed now.

“And it’s super Chelsea.

Super Chelsea FC.

We’re by far the greatest team.

The World has ever seen.”

Out of nowhere, Parky appeared and stood next to me for the rest of the match.

Next up, the ball was pushed forward, and we realised that Jackson was free, with almost half of the pitch ahead of him, and just Adrian to beat. One touch fine, two touches, disaster. Adrian gathered and Jackson, rather pathetically, stayed motionless on the floor.

“Get up, you fool.”

On eighty minutes, he was replaced by Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.

Three minutes later, the ball was played to him, and he bounced the ball out to Sancho. Our little winger shimmied, dropped a shoulder, and struck a fine curler past Adrian and into the Betis goal.

Snap, snap, snap, snap as the substitutes raced across the pitch to join in the celebrations.

In the battle of the Manchester United loanees, it was Sancho 1 Antony 0.

And we were 3-1 up.

More beautiful noise.

The game was won now. However, rather than make arses of ourselves like West Ham United did two years ago, declaring themselves “Champions of Europe”, we seized the moment to declare once again that…roll on drums :

“WE’VE WON IT ALL.”

Marc Guiu replaced Palmer, and our little gem was given a hero’s salute.

With still a minute to play, the Chelsea end chirped along to the tune of “One Step Beyond” and there was much bouncing.

Lovely.

There was still more to come.

With Betis tiring everywhere, Enzo brought the ball forward. He chose to ignore the rampaging run outside from Dewsbury-Hall and slipped the ball inside to Moises Caicedo. He took a swipe, went into orbit on the follow-through, I snapped, and the ball was whipped into the corner.

Chelsea 4 Real Betis 1.

What a feeling.

Phew.

We were simply unstoppable in that second-half.

At the final whistle, I pointed to the sky above Wroclaw.

“That’s for you Albert. That’s for you Rousey.”

The post-match celebrations seemed to take forever to orchestrate, and in the middle of the preparations, I took a few moments to sit in my seat. I had been virtually stood up since lunchtime at “Chatka” and I was exhausted.

At last, Reece James hoisted the trophy aloft and we roared. I attempted to capture the mood with my camera, a hopeless task. It seemed like millions of gold stars fell from the skies. Songs were played, some good, some bad.

I didn’t see the need for “We Are The Champions” because, well, we weren’t. But it was an odd reminder of early 1978 when it became the first single that I ever bought, and I haven’t lived it down since. I bloody hate Queen.

Real Betis quickly vacated the arena, and after what seemed an age, Parky and I slowly left too.

I took one video of “Our House” and called it a night.

And what a night.

We walked away with another UEFA trophy to our name.

If you discount the three losses in the Super Cup, we have won seven out of our eight major European finals. That is a fantastic hit rate.

Europe really is our playground.

And I have been lucky enough to be present at all of them apart from Athens in 1971.

We soon caught the cab back into town, alongside Shari and Chris from Brisbane, Julie and Tim from South Gloucestershire, and Neil Barnett. Both Neil and I will be in Philadelphia for two of the FIFA World Club Cup games in June.

PD, Parky and I queued up for a kebab in a late-night eatery opposite the main train station. There was no chance for extra celebrations, as we had to be up at 6am in the morning to catch our flight home at 10.05am. A can back to the apartment, and we hit the sack at around 2am.

In bed, I found it hard to sleep. My feet ached. And I couldn’t get that bloody song out of my head.

“Tyrique George – aha.

Running down the wing – aha.

Hear the Chelsea sing – aha.

We are going to Wroclaw.”

The return trip home on the Thursday went well, and we all agreed that the short spell in Wroclaw had been absolutely first class.

And, despite the dark days, it had been another decent season supporting The Great Unpredictables.

Top four, Conference League winners, Champions League next season, a team coming together…

I will see some of you in Philadelphia.

Phackinell.

REAL BETIS VS. CHELSEA 1998

CHELSEA VS. REAL BETIS 2025 : TUESDAY

CHELSEA VS. REAL BETIS 2025 : WEDNESDAY PRE-MATCH.

CHELSEA VS. REAL BETIS 2025 : THE EUROPA CONFERENCE FINAL

CHELSEA VS. REAL BETIS 2025 : “WE’VE WON IT ALL”

THANK YOU WROCLAW

“TYRIQUE GEORGE“

“OUR HOUSE”

Tales From Our Tenth League Cup Final

Posted on February 27, 2024 by Chris Axon

Chelsea vs. Liverpool : 25 February 2024.

We just weren’t good enough were we?

This was always my fear. Despite a resurgence in our play over the past month – high points at Villa, the second-half at Palace and at City – there was still a niggling doubt that whatever team was selected to play at Wembley, the players just could not be trusted to drag us over the line. And despite Liverpool players falling by the wayside with injuries as the final approached, I had a fear that there would not be enough in our locker – nous, determination, skill – to give us a much-needed win.

All of our deficiencies – and a few of our positives – were discussed at length as I collected PD, Glenn and Parky and drove up to the M4 at Chippenham. As I approached Junction 17 I made my views clear.

“Right, that’s enough about the game today. Let’s not talk any more about it. Let’s enjoy the day ahead.”

I was up just after 5.45am. I had collected the two Frome lads at 7am and Parky in Holt at 7.30am. By 9.30am, we were tucking into our breakfasts at “The Half Moon Café” on the Fulham Palace Road. At 10am, I pulled up outside “The Eight Bells” at Putney Bridge and PD shouted out to Salisbury Steve, who was just about to disappear inside as the front doors were opened, to get a round in. For the third League Cup Final in a row, we were staying the night at the Premier Inn opposite, and I soon parked the car outside. We were hoping that this would be third time lucky. Against Manchester City in 2019 and against Liverpool in 2022, we had narrowly lost on penalties.

On the Saturday, I had watched Frome Town obtain a relatively easy 3-1 win at home to Tavistock to nudge themselves into pole position in the table. As the beers started to flow, I never felt confident that Chelsea would follow up Frome’s win to give me a perfect weekend. Mark, now living in Spain, and his son Luca, still in The Netherlands, joined us and the laughter roared around the pub. We tried not to think too much about the football.

This would be Chelsea Football Club’s tenth League Cup Final.

Our first final took place four months before I was born in March 1965, when we defeated Leicester City over two legs. In 1972, we infamously lost 1-2 to Stoke City at Wembley and I have no recollection of the game. We had to wait ages for the next one; a 2-0 triumph against Middlesbrough at old Wembley in 1998 after extra-time. Next up was a match in Cardiff at the Millennium Stadium against Liverpool in 2005; we narrowly edged it 3-2 after extra time. Two years later, at the same venue, a 2-1 triumph against Arsenal. In 2008, the 2-1 loss to Tottenham Hotspur, after extra-time, at the new Wembley Stadium. In 2015, we comfortably defeated the same opponent 2-0. Then, the two tight losses in 2019 to Manchester City (0-0 after extra-time, losing 3-4 on penalties) and in 2022 to Liverpool (0-0 after extra-time, losing 10-11 on penalties).

A potted history of us in nine previous League Cup Finals does not tell the entire story of course.

1965 : there are numerous stories about Eddie McCreadie’s apparently masterful solo run up the middle of the park before sliding the ball past the ‘keeper. It was only our second piece of silverware in sixty years.

1972 : “Blue Is The Colour” was released specifically for this game and I used to get such a thrill listening to it on the radio for years after. An Osgood goal for Chelsea, but George bloody Eastham gave Stoke their sole trophy in 161 years.

1998 : the first-part of a Cup Double that season and another Wembley goal from Roberto di Matteo. The good times were returning to Stamford Bridge.

2005 : the first Mourinho season and the first Mourinho silverware. In an enthralling match, we went behind early on after John Arne Riise belted one in from distance. A Steven Gerrard own goal levelled it and two late goals from Mateja Kezman and Didier Drogba gave us a huge win. Mourinho was sent-off for his “shush” but we did not care less. It was the first game that I had seen Chelsea play in an enclosed stadium.

2007 : two more Didier Drogba goals gave us a win after Theo Walcott scored early for Arsenal. The game that Cesc Fabregas was pelted with celery at a corner and the game where John Terry was knocked unconscious by a boot to his head.

2008 : we went ahead through Didier Drogba, but Tottenham levelled with a Dimitar Berbatov penalty before Jonathan Woodgate headed Tottenham in front. Our support that day was the worst that I can ever remember. It was one of my all-time lows as a Chelsea follower.

2015 : this was a tough game for me, coming just three days after my mother’s passing. Goals from John Terry and Diego Costa gave us a relatively easy win.

2019 : a decent performance and great support from the Chelsea crowd. This was the day that Kepa notoriously humiliated Maurizio Sarri by not following instructions to be substituted by Wily Caballero.

2022 : this could have gone either way, but a ridiculously long penalty shootout went against us when Cesar Azpilicueta missed the only penalty out of twenty-two.

Going in to the 2024 Final, our record was won 5 and lost 4.

At 12.45pm, we caught a District Line tube up to Paddington and changed trains to get ourselves over to Marylebone. Here, the ever-reliable Jason handed over a spare ticket to me that would then be passed to Glenn. Just as we were about to hop on a train to Wembley Stadium, the call went out that a few of the lads that we know from Westbury and Trowbridge were in the “Sports Bar.” The drinking continued.

“What football?”

We eventually caught a train at about 2.15pm to Wembley.

We bumped into many familiar faces at Marylebone, on the train, at the station, on the march to the turnstiles.

I remember my first visit to the old Wembley, in around 1972 or 1973, on the back of a visit to see my grandfather’s older brother in Southall. There was no game. I just wanted to see Wembley, beguiled by either the 1972 or 1973 FA Cup Finals. We parked just off “Wembley Way” – actually Olympic Way – and I remember being mightily impressed as I saw the twin towers for the first time. The stadium was at the top of a slight rise in the land, with its own added embankments and steps giving it an air of importance. It stood alone, not encumbered by any buildings nearby, only the London sky above it. It exuded a great sense of place.

Wembley in 2024 is much different. Bleak flats and hotels take up every spare square yard of space, from the walk up to the stadium from Wembley Park Station, right up to the immediate surrounds of the stadium itself. I don’t suffer from claustrophobia and I am glad I don’t. At Wembley, between the bland stadium walls and the oppressive bleak apartment buildings I would be surely panting with anxiety.

It is a horrible stadium. I hate it.

Regular readers of these tales will know only too well how we struggle to get in to Wembley in time. At 2.50pm, I was still in the queue. Once inside, an escalator was not working, delaying me further. I eventually made it in at around 3.05pm.

Sigh.

Our seats were in row thirty-eight, just a few from the very back of the highest part of the stadium. We were virtually on the half-way line. My calves were aching. God knows how much pain PD and Parky were in.

A quick check of the team. As expected, the same as against Manchester City.

Petrovic.

Gusto – Disasi – Colwill – Chilwell

Caicedo – Enzo

Palmer – Gallagher – Sterling

Jackson

Everyone was stood. PJ and Brian – from the pre-match pub at City last weekend – were right behind us along with Feisal and Martin. We would find out later that Gary, Daryl, Ed and Clive were a few seats in front.

These seats only cost £41. Decent.

Liverpool had the best of the very early part of the game and we looked stretched at times. They enjoyed the first real chance when Axel Diasi allowed Luis Diaz a shot but Djordje Petrovic was equal to it.

There wasn’t a great deal of noise thus far. But I always try to look for clues to see which support is more “up for it.” My first observation wasn’t good. On the upper balcony wall, to my left – our unlucky East End – there were red banners everywhere. To my right – the West End, us – the same balcony between the Club Wembley tier and the upper tier was almost completely devoid of Chelsea flags and banners.

Ugh. An early lead to The Scousers.

As the game continued, neither sets of fans were particularly noisy. Were nerves to blame? It couldn’t have been due to the lack of alcohol. Maybe the game needed to ignite to fully engage the supporters and their voices.

Chelsea began to grow into the game and on twenty minutes, a Conor Gallagher cross from the right was played in to Raheem Sterling. There was a heavy touch and the ball eventually found Cole Palmer. His stab at goal was from close-in but the Liverpool ‘keeper Kelleher saved well. Nicolas Jackson’s follow-up was blocked too.

On the half-hour mark, Palmer padded the ball forward to Jackson who moved the ball square to Jackson. His grass-cutter cross to the far post – towards Sterling – was perfection and as our often-maligned striker prodded home, I turned to PD and we both screamed at each other like fools.

Alas.

VAR.

The goal was disallowed. Offside.

Bollocks.

Liverpool’s Gakpo headed against the base of Petrovic’ near post.

The game had taken a while but it was warming up. However, still not much noise, and virtually nothing from our end to the right. There were a few half-hearted chants from our section – “Three Little Birds” is a difficult one to get going in the huge spaces of the upper tier at Wembley – and the noise did not build.

Just before the half-time break, I spotted many red seats in the Chelsea end, the lure of a pint or a pee too strong for many. In contrast, there were hardly any empty seats in the Liveroool end. Advantage still to Liverpool. Bollocks.

When the whistle sounded, I disappeared downstairs and hoped that I would be able to conquer the north face of the Eiger on my return. I made it, but it seemed that we had lost PJ and Feisal to frostbite.

The second-half began and we began to probe the Liverpool defence more often. Gallagher set up Enzo but the Argentinian managed to get his tango feet tangled up and the chance went begging. At the other end, Petrovic punched clear from Elliott.

On the hour, a long cross from the Liverpool left was met by a leap from Van Dijk. The ball nestled in the net. We groaned. In the Liverpool end to our left, red flares were ignited, a horrible reminder of a scene at the end of the 2022 FA Cup Final.

After what seemed like an age, VAR was summoned.

No goal.

Christopher Nkunku replaced Sterling.

The game increased in quality and intensity. Chances were exchanged.

A Gallagher corner dropped into the six-yard box. Levi Colwill headed it on but Disasi made a mess of the final touch. Kelleher was able to jump unchallenged to claim. From my vantage point it seemed impossible that we had not edged ahead.

Gakpo blazed over.

Everyone was still stood. Everyone in the stadium. You have to marvel at us football fans’ ability to stand for hours and hours.

There was a nice interchange between Gusto and Caicedo that set up the silky skills of Palmer. His touch inside to Gallagher was flicked on and we were exasperated when his effort came back off the far post.

Fackinell.

Gomez at Petrovic. An easy save.

Caicedo to Gusto, but a searching ball was just too long for Nkunku at the far post.

Gallagher was given another chance, set up by Palmer, but with just Kelleher to beat there was a lame finish.

Fackinell.

We still created chances. A fine ball by Enzo out to Jackson who did well to hold the ball up. He played it back to Gallagher who blazed over.

Mykhailo Mudryk for Jackson.

Another attack, with bodies in the box, Kelleher saved at point blank range from Nkunku.

Oh my bloody goodness.

At ninety-minutes it was 0-0.

“We have been here before Liverpool, we have been here before.”

There was no time to pause, no time to think, the game began again. Or rather, it didn’t for us. All of the momentum that we had built in the last quarter of the game seemed to disappear as the night grew colder.

Noni Madueke for Gallagher. What? Answers on a postcard.

Trevoh Chalobah for Chilwell.

Liverpool came again, with a few efforts on our goal. We had Petrovic to thank once more. His had been a fine performance. There was a hugely impressive “Allez Allez Allez” from the red corner to my left. It was the loudest noise of the entire match. I looked over at the blue corner to my right. I heard nothing. I just saw a few blue flags being waved in the far corner. As far as responses go, it was almost fucking laughable.

Where has our support gone? It was excellent in 2019 against City. This, in 2024, was even worse than the 2008 debacle against Tottenham. It makes me so sad.

At half-time in extra-time, I suspect we all feared penalties once again.

The second period soon came and we watched as Chelsea grew weaker. The minutes ticked by. Our new additions did not add anything to the team. Mudryk frustrated us in the way only he can do. We looked tired. I felt tired.

Penalties surely.

With just two minutes remaining, a Liverpool corner. I found myself momentarily gazing over at the lower tier opposite, the Chelsea section. Everyone was still stood. I looked back just in time to see the ball fly into the net from another Van Dijk header.

There were red flares again at Wembley Stadium.

Tales From Ironopolis

Posted on January 12, 2024 by Chris Axon

Middlesbrough vs. Chelsea : 9 January 2024.

In the build up to our League Cup semi-final first leg at the Riverside Stadium, I had read somewhere that Chelsea had won every single one of the previous nine games against Middlesbrough, encompassing both venues and across all competitions. From February 2007 to March 2022, Chelsea had won them all.

Gulp.

In this most fragile of seasons, this is surely an an expected reaction.

Gulp.

Surely if there was a record waiting to be broken, here it was. This would be a misfiring Chelsea team playing at a hostile venue on a midweek night in the North-East against a team looking for revenge after fifteen years of hurt.

I did a little more research, but of a more personal nature. From May 1988 to March 2022, I had seen Chelsea play twenty-three times against Middlesbrough and – yes, you have surely guessed it – I was yet to see us lose against them across all venues and competitions.

Played : 23

Won : 20

Drew : 3

Lost : 0

Another gulp.

Should I even bother going to Teesside?

The ironic thing here is that the very first of these twenty-three matches on Saturday 28 May 1988, even though we won the game 1-0, still feels like a loss to this day; we had lost the Football League Division One Play-Off first leg 2-0 and so were relegated after the second leg. It was, undoubtedly, one of the worst days in our history and probably my worst Chelsea day of them all.

In the immediate aftermath of that day, however, Chelsea wreaked havoc on the fortunes of Middlesbrough Football Club with revenge in many forms; a Zenith Data Systems Cup win at Wembley in 1990, an FA Cup victory at Wembley in 1997 and a League Cup win at Wembley in 1998.

The game in 1998, when the League Cup was called the Coca-Cola Cup, was our last game against ‘Boro in the competition that now carries the title the Carabao Cup. Middlesbrough had been relegated to the second tier at the end of the previous season, but still had some decent enough players such as Paul Merson, Mark Schwarzer, Paul Gascoigne, Gianluca Festa, Nigel Pearson and Andy Townsend.

Pre-match was spent in The Globe on Baker Street. I remember being nervous before the game. I feared that Middlesbrough would be driven by revenge for the 1997 FA Cup Final loss against us. I need not have worried. We watched the game in the same corner of Wembley as the previous year’s FA Cup Final against the same opponents, though in a higher position in the enclosure. The Chelsea team, managed by Gianluca Vialli in a cool light grey suit with a big-knotted tie, lined up as below.

De Goey

Sinclair – Duberry – Leboeuf – Le Saux

Petrescu – Newton – Wise – Di Matteo

Hughes – Zola

Chelsea dominated the game, but Middlesbrough held on to a 0-0 score line in the regular ninety minutes. Thankfully, in the first period of extra time, Frank Sinclair became an unlikely Wembley hero, heading home a cross that Gianfranco Zola hooked back from the bye-line. In the second period of extra-time, I caught Zola’s low corner on film just before it was tucked home by Roberto di Matteo.

It always felt odd that after waiting twenty-seven years for a domestic trophy, we won at Wembley twice within ten months but against the same opponent and with the same score line.

That day at Wembley, almost twenty-six years ago now, is sometimes lost amongst our plethora of trophy wins but it was another important stepping stone as we continued to chip away at other clubs in that era.

Great times.

And well-loved players too.

I loved the team from that era.

Didn’t we look young. Not a grey hair in sight. And get this; six-year old Ed is now a father.

Gulp.

With a place in this season’s League Cup Final up for grabs, we soon made the conscious decision to stay the night once we had been drawn against Middlesbrough. I haven’t always attended the away legs of League Cup semi-finals due to various reasons, but there was no way I was going to miss this one. This competition probably represented our only realistic chance of silverware in 2023/24. I booked two days off work and then sorted out some accommodation in nearby Stockton-on-Tees.

I collected PD at 8am and Lord Parky at 8.30am. This was going to be a long old day. We stopped off a few times en route. Thankfully the clouds overhead did not result in much rain. I was happy to see clear blue skies after we drove past Sheffield. I arrived on Teesside at 2.15pm.

Our check-in time on Sheraton Park was at 3pm. There was just time for the first beer of the day at “The Horse & Jockey” on the Durham Road. We dropped our bags off and took a cab into Stockton-on-Tees. As luck would have it, our friend Simon – and my work colleague – was up in Stockton-on-Tees with work, overseeing the installation of some office furniture for a few days. He was able to nab a ticket in the away end. He joined us in “The Thomas Sheraton” pub in the centre of the town, which was once a courthouse but has now been “Wetherspooned”.

Sheraton Park. Thomas Sheraton. What is it with Thomas Sheraton in Stockton-on-Tees? It turns out that he was a famous eighteenth century furniture designer. How apt. We spent a couple of hours in this second pub and then popped around the corner into “The Hoptimist” – another apt setting, we were nothing but optimists on this cold night in Smoggy Land – before getting a cab into Middlesbrough. We joined up with Salisbury Steve, Salisbury Simon and Salisbury Sam in “Barracuda” for our fourth port of call of the evening. We didn’t stay too long here. There were a few Chelsea supporters dotted around. A few songs of defiance.

At 7.15pm, jackets were fastened and we set off. The walk, we hoped, would not take too long. The stadium was about a mile away. We marched under a railway bridge, then took a turn past some swish new buildings – Middlesbrough College – with the wind biting as it skimmed off the nearby River Tees. The blue of the Transporter Bridge was just a few hundred yards away. Signs to inspire the students were dotted around.

“Great ideas begin in Middlesbrough.”

I hoped that this was one of them. I needed convincing.

“Where alchemists were born below Cleveland’s hills. A giant blue dragonfly across the Tees reminds us every night. We built the world. Every metropolis came from Ironopolis.”

The local steelworks was once huge. The ICI plant towards the North Sea was huge too. Those days are gone now. The local Smoggies can only imagine the times when heavy industry in Ironopolis was the norm.

The stadium appeared across one final void of water. Time was ticking.

We all got in with about five minutes to go. It would appear that we had just missed the pre-game mosaics, no doubt resplendent with matching “Pigbag” soundtrack.

I took my place in the stand alongside Ian, a lad that I have got to know over the past few years and who is my “go-to” source for any extra tickets that I might need. I am sure many of you know him. He is soon off to the Ivory Coast for the Africa Cup of Nations. It would be the first time that we would be watching a game side-by-side.

The first thing that caught my eye was our colours.

“Fucking Tottenham kit.”

Chelsea in navy blue.

Sigh.

Our 2024 team to play Middlesbrough?

Petrovic

Gusto – Silva – Disasi – Colwill

Enzo – Caicedo

Madueke – Gallagher – Sterling

Palmer

This was only my sixth visit to the Riverside Stadium. It is a big regret that I never saw us play at Ayresome Park. This was an unwelcoming a place as any according to most reports, snuggled alongside terraced houses and with ambushes aplenty from streets and alleys alike. But I wish I had gone. Ian told me that his first visit was the 2-7 loss in early 1979, a game that marked the return of Peter Osgood from Philadelphia Fury.

The game began. We attacked the end to our right. The home fans were immediately loud and hostile. We were all stood, of course, but after a flurry of Chelsea songs and chants, we soon quietened down.

I thought that our shape was often a 4/3/3 with Gallagher alongside Enzo and Caicedo.

An early mistake by Levi Colwill on the far side let in a ‘Boro attacker but thankfully Djordje Petrovic easily gathered.

Ian and I had a side-conversation about the way football is going these days and we briefly touched on the almost inevitable moment when we might be forced to give it all up. We admitted that I was lucky in that I have Frome Town.

“You seem to enjoy it more” said Ian.

Gulp.

The game struggled to find any pattern and despite dominating possession, we struggled to link our play. There was little invention, nor penetration. Everything was so damned sluggish. At last a chance for Cole Palmer, playing as a false-nine, but his low effort from just outside the box did not really bother the home ‘keeper.

The home fans to our left roared at us.

“Your support is fucking shit.”

The noise in our section was indeed embarrassingly quiet.

More of the same followed. Lots of ineffectual Chelsea keep-ball, resolute Middlesbrough defending, an occasional break from them. Our noise still didn’t materialise. I sang more than some, but less than others. I think the poor show on the pitch sucked the life out of us. And yet that is no real excuse. We should have been much more involved.

A chance! An errant back-pass was intercepted by Palmer but he slid the ball inches wide when we were all expecting a goal.

On thirty-seven minutes, a long ball from Middlesbrough caught us sleeping. Isaiah Jones, who I remember from the FA Cup game in 2022 at the same stadium, won the race to slide a ball back from the goal-line and Hayden Hackney prodded the ball in from close range.

The home support boomed.

Both Ian and I noticed that the PA guy described Hackney’s goal as “Middlesbrough’s first goal” – the cheeky blighter.

A long shot from Moises Caicedo went just wide. A shot from outside the box from Enzo was spilled by the ‘Boro ‘keeper, but to our absolute horror, Palmer knocked the ball over from right under the bar. There was still time for another Palmer miss; a fine ball in from Caicedo, but after turning inside, Palmer finished tamely at the ‘keeper.

There were virtually no pluses points from that awful first half. Middlesbrough were compact and aggressively ate up any space that we might have hit. Our play was ponderous and poor.

Many many grumbles at half-time.

PD did not like that we played with no physical focus in attack; I wonder why Mauricio Pochettino chose to leave Armando Broja on our bench?

That said, I was still hopeful – if not too confident – that we would get a goal in the second-half.

It was virtually all one-way traffic in the second period. The Chelsea choir were still waiting for inspiration. A cross from Enzo, a tame header from Noni Madueke but an easy save for Glover.

On the hour, I noted our first really loud and coherent chant of the entire game.

“Hello, hello – we are the Chelsea boys.”

I snapped to capture a low effort from an off-balance Conor Gallagher.

A double substitution soon after.

Mykhailo Mudryk for Enzo.

Armando Broja for Madueke.

I grew frustrated with Mudryk, too easily sucked in to the middle when his true value is to surely stay out wide to either stretch the defence out or to exploit the space. We had almost constant possession in the final half-an-hour. But our play kept going around in ever-decreasing circles. We lacked a cutting edge as we have done for what seems like years.

A shot from the disappointing Sterling curled high and wide.

In the last minute, Alfie Gilchrist replaced Disasi.

At the final whistle, boos from many in our section, but I was just numb.

I posted on Facebook that “I walked in merry. I am sober now.”

It was a terrible performance, on and off the pitch. It was, if I am truthful, the quietest Chelsea away support that I can ever remember being part of. That’s rotten. That it was for a cup semi-final makes it even more horrible.

We mumbled and grumbled to a few mates as we made our way outside.

“Blame me lads. I knew that my unbeaten run against this lot would end tonight.”

The night was cold, but a bacon cheeseburger – with onions – soon warmed me up. I liked it so much that I bought a second one.

We met up with Simon and caught a cab back to our respective digs and called it a night.

At least Frome won.

1998.

2024.

In memory of David Dicken, father of Chris, grandfather of Michael, who sadly passed away in 2023.

This photograph is from the Middlesbrough vs. Chelsea game on 20 October 2007.

Rest In Peace.

Tales From The Loyal Three Thousand

Posted on December 9, 2023 by Chris Axon

Manchester United vs. Chelsea : 6 December 2023.

Originally the plan was to stay up in the North-West for four nights, taking in the matches at Manchester United and Everton without the need to travel up and back twice. I had booked accommodation near Piccadilly for Wednesday night, and accommodation near Goodison Park for the other three nights. With it being our last-ever visit to the old lady, I thought it worthwhile to base ourselves in Liverpool, exploring some previously unvisited areas – North Wales maybe – while being close to the stadium for one last hurrah.

That was the plan.

And then Frome Town buggered it all up.

The Mighty Dodge drew ex-Football League outfit Torquay United in the Third Round of the FA Trophy. Well, I couldn’t miss that. I even thought about leaving PD and Parky in Liverpool and driving to Frome on the Saturday. But then Parky decided that he needed to make other arrangements and we chose to cancel both stays.

At 1pm I collected PD in Frome and we began our journey north. It honestly did not seem too long ago that I last visited Old Trafford; it came at the end of last season, the first of two games in Manchester in a mere five days.

It’s a well-worn path. This would be my twenty-eighth away game with Chelsea at Old Trafford. It used to be a decent hunting ground. However, those days seem a long time ago. It is now over ten years since our last win at United, a lone strike from Juan Mata giving us the points in May 2013. Alex Ferguson announced that he would retire as United manager the very next day. I would like to think that the two are linked.

We reached “The Windmill” at the Tabley Interchange on the M6 at 4.45pm and we had a bite to eat. At 6pm, I set off on the last stretch. Alas, we were hit with tiresome traffic congestion as we crawled along the A56 through Altrincham and Sale, and then eventually along Chester Road and into Stretford. Past the old Art Deco cinema. Past the new McDonalds where “The Drum” used to be, past the shopping centre. We were parked up at 7.15pm.

It was a clear night. A little cold. No rain.

I am sure I could walk this last section in my sleep. It is so familiar.

Across Gorse Hill Park. The floodlights of the cricket ground to my right. Back onto the Chester Road again. Past a lot of new buildings, much changed in the last fifteen years. But still that working men’s club on the right. A new car dealership. The hot dog stand. The steel of Old Trafford across the way. That large “Tesco” on the right. A new pop-up bar on the other pavement, a re-furbished 20’ sea container. Those tower blocks to the left. The trot over the road. “The Bishop Blaize” pub. The line of fast food places as you walk up to the cross-roads. Red-brick terraced houses beyond. Lou Macari’s chip shop. People queueing for food. The pungent smell of vinegar. The grafters selling match day scarves. Onto Sir Matt Busby Way. The bloke yelling out “United We Stand” and yet more stalls selling scarves and tat. The crowds getting deeper, a mix of accents. The line of police as the forecourt is reached. The neon signage on the East Stand. The Munich memorial. The Munich clock. The slope down to the away turnstiles. The hunt for familiar faces.

“Kim!”

I spotted Kim, from the US, now residing in Liverpool, and I handed over her match ticket. We bump into each other at a variety of locations – the last one a boat in Bristol harbour – and this was her first visit to Old Trafford for a few years.

It’s always the biggest away game for me, this one. It’s a classic battle. North vs. South. Red vs. Blue. Manchester vs. London. Old Trafford. The largest club ground in the UK. The scene of our 1970 FA Cup win. The scene of our 1915 FA Cup loss. Some huge battles over the decades.

My SLR is banned at both Manchester stadia and so I again wanted to take a few photos of the match-going support, close-up, rather than rely on too many grainy and fuzzy action shots using my smaller camera. There was a mandatory search and I was in. It was 7.50pm.

There was a new vantage point for me for this one. I am usually positioned in the curve above the corner flag. This time I was in Section 233, square behind the goal-line, a few yards inside the pitch. I was only a few seats away from the home fans. It allowed me a few new angles of Old Trafford for which I was grateful.

This was an 8.15pm kick-off. This relatively new kick-off time, at the behest of Amazon, seems particularly pernicious. An extra twist of the knife for match-going fans. There seemed to be no valid reason for it. Why not stage all of “their” midweek games at 7.30pm? With an 8.15pm start, it’s more tiredness, more pain, more stress, especially for those pour souls who were straight back in to work the next morning.

Alan, alongside me in row seven had travelled up by coach. There were no trains back to London after the game. He aimed to get back home to South London by around 6am, another couple of days of annual leave used up, just like me.

Kev, a few rows behind me, had travelled up with some friends from the Bristol area, and although his father Brian was taking a turn to drive, Kev would be back in work at 6am on the Thursday, the poor sod.

Despite the ridiculous kick-off time, our end was full. Three thousand strong. But of course. We may be going through a tough spell but the clamour for away tickets is as frenzied as ever. I saw no gaps in our section. Not one.

Top marks.

Before the kick-off, I met up with Pete from Texas. His wife, a United fan, was in The Stretford End.

The teams entered the pitch from the corner. I had not yet seen the team.

Sanchez

Cucarella – Silva – Disasi – Colwill

Enzo – Caicedo

Sterling – Palmer – Mudryk

Jackson

Or something like that.

The home team had a mixture of names that I was and wasn’t overly familiar with. This isn’t the team of Rooney, Ronaldo, Ferdinand and Evra.

It isn’t even the team of Coppell, Buchan, Hill and Macari.

The current United team is not known in my household.

The game began.

I had heard a new song in the crowded concourse before the game and here it was again.

“Who’s that twat who comes from Portsmouth?”

Well, Mason Mount wasn’t even playing, nor was he even on the bench.

We were under the cosh from the start and in the fourth minute Robert Sanchez collapsed well to finger-tip an angled shot from Rasmus Hojland, whoever he is, past the far post. It was all United.

On nine minutes, after another United attack, the referee signalled a penalty after VAR was called into action. I did not know why the penalty was given. There is no TV screen at Old Trafford. There was just the briefest of mentions of the penalty on the scoreboard in the corner of the Stretford End. So, I was left in the dark as Bruno Fernandes tee’d up the penalty. I lifted up my camera to capture the kick. With everyone stood, I saw nothing. I just heard a roar and I immediately tried to ascertain, in a nanosecond, if the roar was from us or from them. It was from us.

GET IN.

I had no idea if the ‘keeper had touched it, but I did not care one jot.

It was still 0-0.

Not long after, Cole Palmer intercepted a pass from Sofyan Amrabat, whoever he is, and the ball fell to Nicolas Jackson. He passed to Mykhailo Mudryk who tamely shot against the near post.

Gary wasn’t sure who the United midfielder was and we both said that he looked like Juan Sebastian Veron.

“Don’t worry, we’ll sign him in the summer.”

United were carving us open, with their wide men enjoying tons of space. I didn’t like how Levi Colwill, the night’s captain, was not close to his man, while Raheem Sterling was reluctant to double-back and help Marc Cucarella, who often had to cope with two or even three men running at him. A shot from Alejandro Garnacho was saved by Sanchez and in the immediate break, Mudryk must have been overwhelmed as he raced forward with players in support to his left and right. In the end, his pass to the right to Sterling was awful, and was easily intercepted.

Shots were exchanged. Antony at Sanchez. Enzo at Onana.

Possession was given up easily. It was as if the ball was an unexploded bomb awaiting detonation. The ball was nobody’s friend. On twenty minutes, a move down our right carved us open, and when the ball came back to Scott McTominay, the midfielder purposefully volleyed it low and into the net. He celebrated down below us.

More mistakes followed. And chances. A poor touch by Jackson allowed Onana to block.

It frustrated the living hell out of all of us to see Chelsea continue to play the ball out from the back. This well-rehearsed ploy attempted to entice United on, allowing us to cut them open with a series of blistering passes played with cutthroat precision that would lead to devastating counter-attacks.

“Er…what?”

Our passing throughout the first-half was to prove to be our Achilles heel. Yet United were almost as bad. This was no remake of the 2008 Champions League Final.

On the half-hour, Jackson set up Mudryk. He drove on in the inside left channel but his effort was as tame as they come, the ball idly missing the near post by yards.

The mood in the away end was of frustration and then perhaps even anger.

I noted how Cole Palmer often came deep in an effort to knit things together but he found it oh-so difficult. Enzo was quiet. Caicedo non-existent.

Approaching the last five minutes of the first-half, I quickly tallied up that it could have been 5-3.

Crazy game.

With Harry Maguire finding himself in an advanced position on their right down below us, the tall centre-back adeptly back-heeled the ball to a team mate and the United fans in the Sir Bobby Charlton Stand collectively laughed.

On forty-five minutes, Mudryk played in Palmer. He drifted in along the edge of the penalty box, defenders close by, and magnificently stroked the ball in at the far post.

YES!

We went doo-fucking-lally.

He must have loved that, an ex-City player scoring at the Stretford End.

There was a song for Palmer.

“He moves it from the left to right. Cole Palmer is dynamite.”

This was followed by a loud “Carefree” that rung out from Sections 230 to 233. We had been pretty quiet as the half developed but here was a moment to enjoy.

The inevitable “just like London your city is blue.”

At half-time, I bumped into a few faces in the concourse.

“Not much quality but there’s a lot going on.”

I briefly met up with Johnny Twelve from California, celebrating his fiftieth Chelsea game. His wife was alongside him in the away section. I spotted that hundreds of central seats in the lower tier of the Stretford End were empty at the start of the second-half. This is obviously where United had decided to locate many of their corporate guests, many of whom were taking their time to return to their seats.

The lower tier of the Stretty.

Good God.

This end was the beating heart of Old Trafford when I was younger, when I first visited the stadium in 1986, and throughout the next few decades. I can’t imagine what the United faithful think about this.

Modern football, eh?

Mauricio Pochettino replaced the keen but exposed Cucarella with Reece James. The second-half began and we wondered what on Earth would happen next.

Chances were not so frequent as in the first-half.

Luke Shaw, at left-back, and defending near us, was the object of some abuse from Gary.

“The size of your shorts, Shaw.”

“Oi, Shaw. Billy Smart wants his tent back.”

A corner from down below us from Mudryk was flicked on by James and Jackson’s header at the far post really should have hit the target. A strong run from Mudryk then took him into the danger area but his shot was deflected for a corner. At the other end, Garnacho cut inside and his shot on goal reminded me so much of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s late equaliser against us in the autumn of 1997. Thankfully, this effort continued to rise over the bar.

Alas, from virtually the same place in the penalty box, Garnacho sent a teasing cross over to the far post and Teddy Sheringham, Eric Cantona, Andy Cole, Denis Law, Lou Macari, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Wayne Rooney, Gary Pallister, Billy Meredith and Bobby Charlton were among those lining up to head home. Scott McTominay got the touch.

2-1. Bollocks.

Two goals for McTominay. Bollocks.

There was a sniff of VAR cancelling the goal – again, I have no idea what for – but the goal stood. What with late kick-off times and VAR replays for those watching elsewhere, football is a TV game now. As if anyone was in any doubt.

There were twenty minutes’ left. The mood in the away end deteriorated. Rather than improve things with stability, James was having a ‘mare. In fact, the whole bloody team were awful.

Garnacho, with an instinctive angled shot, wide.

Fackinell.

In the first-half there had been rare breaks. In the second-half there had been virtually nothing. Armando Broja replaced Mudryk on seventy-seven minutes, and I wondered why Jackson will still playing. He had been, perhaps, the poorest of the bunch all night long.

Reece James blazed over from an angle.

Ridiculously, we were only losing 2-1 and we were one goal away from the most improbable point. In the last few minutes, a deep cross from James found the leap from Broja at the far post. He hit the frame of the goal.

Oh God.

The final straw for me took place in added time, with us showing no urgency at all at a throw-in, and no players looking like they were too bothered about anything.

No movement. No desire. No talking. No gesticulating. No fervour.

No hope.

The final whistle was blown and I headed for the exits. I couldn’t face clapping the players, but I heard the boos from among our fans. I just glowered.

We walked, as quickly as we could, back to the car. I overheard a few conversations from the home fans. They were pragmatic, but generally subdued, far from euphoric.

“Scott McTominay. He’s our top scorer now.”

“Says it all, doesn’t it?”

Yeah, Scott bloody McTominay.

We walked past the chippies. The smell of vinegar cut through the air again. Along the Chester Road, the familiar walk, the familiar feeling.

We were back on the M6 at 11pm and, after stopping at Keele Services and Strensham Services, I made good time heading south. PD ran through the league positions and – yes – all of the teams above us are undoubtedly better than us. We seem destined to finish in tenth place this season. I joked that the best that we can hope for in May is to finish top of the West London League, ahead of Brentford and Fulham.

Everton on Sunday will be a struggle and I can hear the words already.

“I’ll take a draw now.”

It is becoming our mantra this season.

I eventually made it home at 2.50am.

There is no punchline.

TEAMS

CORNER

STAND

YELLOW

STEPS

THEM

ALONE

OUTSIDE

> dedicated to the loyal three thousand

Tales From My Blackburn Scrapbook

Posted on November 4, 2023 by Chris Axon

Chelsea vs. Blackburn Rovers : 1 November 2023.

Treacherous waters ahead…

But first, we hoped, a little respite in the form of a home tie in the season’s Carabao Cup against Blackburn Rovers. Here was a game that we should win, surely?

This was another early start for me; a 4.30am alarm ahead of a day’s toil that would allow me to pick up my three usual passengers at 2pm. We were all well aware that Storm Ciaran was soon to hit the south of England and so I hoped that the drive up to London would be ahead of the expected rainstorms and gales. I would, we presumed, have all of that to contend with on the return drive home after the game. PD kept saying that the rain was due in London at 9pm.

On the drive towards the capital, the skies to the east and the north were fine, devoid of much cloud, and all very pleasant. However, behind me, in my mirrors, dense grey clouds haunted us most of the way but thankfully did not hit us.

Already through to the quarter finals were Port Vale and Middlesbrough. Could there possibly be a case of me tempting fate by writing about Port Vale in my previous match report? Should we get through later in the evening, an away game at Vale Park would undoubtedly be my favourite draw. The last time we played them was in 1929, almost a century ago. Alternatively, Ipswich Town would be decent; Portman Road is a ground that I am yet to visit. Alternatively, an away game in Newcastle or in Middlesbrough or in Liverpool or in Manchester would severely test me. Ouch.

At just after 5pm, I trotted into “The Rylston” to join up with PD and Parky, who I had dropped off forty minutes earlier. They were with Salisbury Steve’s mate Sam. I ordered some food and we chatted a little about the club at the moment. I could not lie; I told the boys that I honestly wondered if we would – could? – pick up a single point from the next treacherous six league games. I stayed in “The Rylston” for an hour and then an hour was spent in “Simmons” where there was a little pre-match meet-up between some friends from the US. I enjoyed a natter with Nick from California, Tim from Texas and Kim from California. I left the bar just after 7pm and was amazed, but pleased, that the rain had not yet hit.

Tickets for this game were back at the £26 level. Well done Chelsea.

Blackburn Rovers, eh? It has been a while.

In fact, the last time that we had met them was the weekend before a certain game in Munich in 2012, a narrow 2-1 win. In that game, we wore the 2012/13 kit and I hoped that it would not be worn in Munich. I did not like the precedent of the 2008/9 shirt being worn in Moscow. On that day, we thought that we had seen the last of Didier Drogba at Chelsea. After the game, the FA Cup was paraded and Roy Bentley made the Matthew Harding laugh with his antics. It was a lovely day, almost dreamlike from this point in time in a little less optimistic 2023.

Blackburn Rovers were relegated that season and have been battling to get back to the top flight ever since. They suffered relegation to League One – I still like to call it Division Three – in 2016/17 but were promoted the very next season.

I used to like going up to Ewood Park. On a few occasions I travelled up with my Rovers mate Mark, including my first visit in 1994/95, a 1-2 loss. There was a game in 1995/96 when I watched with my mate Alan in the home seats when we lost 0-3 and we were immediately sussed when we didn’t spring to our feet when Rovers’ first goal went in. In more hostile environments, we would not have got off quite so lightly.

There was the Gianfranco Zola debut in 1996/97 when Chelsea completely filled the lower section of the away end, but also had some fans in the top tier too, a healthy 4,000 in total. A fine game ended 1-1 on that occasion.

There was a game that I watched with Mark in a hospitality suite in 1997/98 as guests of a supplier for the toiletries company that we worked for. Until the opener this season, it is the only Chelsea game where I have “gone corporate” and it was an odd experience. The two of us had watched a Rovers vs. Villa game from the same hospitality suite the previous season too.

I have been up there eleven times in total, but all at the redeveloped Ewood Park, none at the original version. I missed the two most famous away games up there in recent years; the 4-3 win in 1998/99 and the 1-0 win in 2004/5, both mid-week games and difficult for me to reach.

The last time that I saw a game at Ewood with Mark was in 2003/04. By then Chelsea were the un-loved money men where once Blackburn Rovers held that mantle. One wonders if the media would have been so against Jack Walker and Roman Abramovich had their monies gone to more favoured teams on Fleet Street. I think we know the answer to that question.

Arguably our most famous game ever with them was the FA Cup Semi-Final at Old Trafford in 2007, a nice 2-1 win.

Of course there have been plenty of games at Stamford Bridge too. The first one for me was the opening game of 1988/89 when our terraces were closed due to the near riot against Middlesbrough. On that day, just 8,722 saw us lose 1-2. Depressing times.

I also remember the last game of 1995/96, a 2-3 loss, but acknowledged by everyone at Chelsea as the game in which the fans played a major role in determining the next Chelsea manager. Glenn Hoddle was to take over as England manager from Terry Venables and according to the English press, Ken Bates’ mind was full of George Graham as the replacement. The Chelsea choir had other ideas.

“You can stick George Graham up your arse.”

We serenaded Ruud Gullit that Sunday afternoon. He was soon named as our manager. Job done.

I was inside Stamford Bridge at around 7.15pm.

Still no rain.

Rovers only had 3,000 having turned down the chance to have more. This surprised me somewhat. On the Shed balcony were two away flags. One simply said “Darwen BRFC” and I quickly messaged Mark. It is his home town. It was Mark who first spoke to me about Adidas designer Gary Aspden – himself a native of Darwen – about his collaborations with the sportswear giant and the Spezial range especially. It was his story which eventually lead me to tracking down Carlos Ruiz at his incredible shop in Buenos Aires in 2020.

Just before kick-off, a brief flurry of texts.

Chris : “Good luck.”

Mark : “Not expecting much.”

Chris : “That’s OK. Neither am I.”

Good God, that Rovers away kit was shite.

Us?

Nice to see Benoit Badiashile back in the team. Reece James was starting again. Enzo back. Jackson too. And “Les”. No Mudryk.

Sanchez

James – Disasi – Badiashile – Cucarella

Ugochukwu – Enzo – Gallagher

Palmer – Jackson – Sterling

The Rovers team included solidly British and Irish names such as Brittain, Hill, Carter, Pickering Wharton, Travis, Moran, Garrett and Leonard, whoever they were.

I used to be able to name the Blackburn Rovers team, nay squad. Sigh.

At least I recognised their exotic-sounding manager Jan Dahl Tomasson, who once briefly played for Newcastle United among others.

As the game kicked off, I presumed that the folk from Blackburn, Darwen, Accrington, Rawtenshall, Oswaldtwistle, Clayton-le-Moors and Ramsbottom would be singing songs throughout the evening about Burnley Football Club.

It’s their thing.

The game started.

Still no rain.

We were treated to a very rare occurrence at the kick-off as Enzo pumped the ball up towards Nicolas Jackson who got a shot in from an angle within ten seconds of the whistle.

It was a decent enough start, though it hardly got our pulses racing. Unsurprisingly, the away team were in no mood to attack and aimed to soak up pressure. Raheem Sterling, away in the far corner, cut inside and there was a strong penalty appeal as he tangled with a defender. Enzo then released James down the right but his shot was low and straight at the Rovers’ ‘keeper.

Our play deteriorated a little and there were some moans around us. Rovers tried to get in the game but their attacks were rare. The noise, even from the away support, was not great. The three of us – PD, Alan and I – sat with our arms crossed. We must have looked as grumpy as hell.

There was an easy save from Robert Sanchez down below us as Rovers threatened a little.

At last, something to cheer us up; we witnessed a sublime spin and turn from Cole Palmer on the half-way line. In fact, it was Palmer who produced most of the pleasing play in the opening period. His touch, skill and awareness was a constant treat. Enzo set up James again, and our right back advanced to find space but his low shot was drilled low and eventually wide of the far post. A fine shimmy from Enzo allowed him to create space but his weak shot was kept out by the Blackburn ‘keeper.

On the half-hour, a short corner was worked well – for once – and Conor Gallagher lofted a cross into the six-yard box. The ‘keeper flapped at it and the ball fell towards a Chelsea player.

I snapped with my SLR.

In it flew.

Who was the scorer? Ah, the returnee.

Badia – Badia – Bing.

We were 1-0 up.

Alan : “THTCAUN.”

Chris : “COMLD.”

The Matthew Harding reprised one of its current songs.

“Todd Boehly went to France…”

I found it reassuring when I heard Alan solemnly comment that he refuses to sing that song. I refuse to do so too. I would feel uncomfortable singing that man’s name, giving him some sort of recognition.

I have already heard enough from Todd Boehly to regard him as a fool.

The away team mustered up a late effort on goal in a rather dull first-half, but Andrew Moran’s effort faded past Sanchez’ far post. Our ‘keeper had completed a couple of Word Search puzzles in that first-half.

At 9pm, as PD predicted, rain.

There was a slight scare at the very start of the second period when an early Chelsea attack broke down and Rovers attacked down the right. Harry Leonard just about kept ahead of the chasing pack but his shot was hit meekly wide, with the watching three-thousand away supporters no doubt trying to suck the ball in.

We improved in the second-half.

I loved an early through-ball that Enzo pushed forward early and into space. Two Chelsea players attacked the ball but the chance evaporated. But I loved this variation to the tap tap tap of balls being pushed around for the sake of it.

Sterling started to dazzle and he set up Enzo, who again left his shooting boots at home, a tame effort straight at the ‘keeper. It was then Palmer’s turn to shake off a defender with some fancy dancing, and he created an angled shot that flew over via the ‘keeper’s fingertips.

On the hour, the two players then combined, Palmer stealing the ball from a Rovers defender and feeding it inside to Sterling, who curled a fine shot into the goal, clipping it around the closest defender. It’s becoming his trademark goal. I snapped that one too

Get in.

[thinking : “Vale away next please”]

We had heard that West Ham were beating Arsenal, Newcastle were winning at Old Trafford. My mind drifted a little as I played with various scenarios. We had all admitted pre-match that getting to a League Cup Final, or even a semi-final, with this current team and squad in its current state of health and mind would indeed be something to celebrate.

What’s that saying about cutting cloth accordingly?

Once proud Chelsea, serial-winners, getting excited about a League Cup Final?

Yes. Absolutely.

It’s amazing how a – relatively – poor spell re-jigs expectations and aspirations. I think most of my close mates would kill for a stint in the Europa Conference next season.

A couple of substitutions.

Malo Gusto for James.

Levi Colwill for Badiashile.

We could relax a little now. Sterling set up Jackson who lazily blasted over. He was not having a great game. There was more trickery from Palmer and a low shot from outside the box. The ball took a deflection en route and hit the base of the post. A low shot from Gallagher went just wide. We were treated to The Sterling Show, with one mazy dribble into the heart of the Rovers’ penalty box drawing gasps from us all.

Two more substitutions.

Moises Caicedo for Jackson.

Noni Madueke for Palmer.

The away team broke through our ranks but the strong fist of Sanchez thwarted the low shot from the substitute Sigurdsson.

It stayed 2-0.

A much better second-half, with Sterling excellent.

On the walk back to the car, the rain continued, but the drive back to Wiltshire and Somerset was not as bad, truthfully, as on Saturday. However, the road near my house was even more flooded than on Saturday so I avoided it and quickly adjusted the last half-a-mile. I reached home at 12.45am.

Oh, another home draw, awaits us in the Quarter-Finals; Newcastle United.

Vale Park will have to wait until the Semi-Final.

Next up…groan…Tottenham away on Monday evening.

See you there.

1988/89

1995/96

1996/97

1997/98

2003/04

2011/12

2023/24

Tales From Baltimore, Bolton, London And Stockholm

Posted on May 18, 2023 by Chris Axon

Chelsea vs. Nottingham Forest : 13 May 2023.

…this one is going to resemble a mazy Pat Nevin dribble, drifting from place to place, hopefully entertaining, and with a few dummies thrown in for good measure.

In the build up to our home game with Nottingham Forest, I had read that there would be a couple of banners appearing before kick-off in The Shed and the Matthew Harding to celebrate the impact that Thiago Silva has had during his relatively short period of time at Stamford Bridge. And quite right too.

Everybody loves Thiago Silva.

The man is a defensive colossus. He is calmness personified. He oozes class. In a season that has stumbled along with many a setback along the way he has stood out like a beacon of professionalism. How I wish that all of our players showed the same skill set and the same work ethic as Thiago Silva. Ah, I had best add N’Golo Kante here.

We need a banner for him too.

On the evening before the game, by chance, I caught a comment by an acquaintance on Facebook that Thiago Silva was looking to return to Brazil, to his childhood team Fluminense – for whom he played seventy-odd games – after he eventually leaves Chelsea. I loved this idea, of legends returning home, and of course I immediately thought of Gianfranco Zola returning to Cagliari for a couple of seasons after leaving us. I just hoped that we could tease another season or two out of our veteran Brazilian.

I then checked on Thiago Silva’s playing career and I was reminded that he had played for Milan, after his spell with Fluminense, from 2009 to 2012. And that made me think. I was lucky enough to see Chelsea play Milan in Baltimore in the summer of 2009, just ahead of our wonderful double-winning campaign under Carlo Ancelotti. I did a little research and soon realised that Thiago Silva had indeed played in that game. My heart skipped a little. I then checked a few photographs, as is my wont, and I spotted an image that made me smile. In the first-half of the game, which Chelsea would win 2-1, I had taken a photo, focussed on Frank Lampard, that also featured a veritable “Who’s Who” of top-ranking footballers from that era.

Ronaldinho, Didier Drogba, Alessandro Nesta, Jon Obi Mikel, our man Frank, Andrea Pirlo and – there he was – Thiago Silva.

So, here indeed was proof that this was the very first time that I had seen Thiago Silva play. It’s very likely that this was the first time that Frank had seen Thiago Silva play too, though his view was certainly different than mine.

Almost fourteen years later, the two of them are at the same club, although of course it was Frank who signed the cherished Brazilian during our interim manager’s first spell at the helm at the start of the COVID-ravaged season of 2020/21.

I then decided to flick through a few photos from that very enjoyable stay in Baltimore. I took plenty of the game of course – probably the highest quality match of the seventeen that I have seen us play in the US – but just as many of our fellow supporters too. One photo again made me smile. It featured my good friend Burger on the right of a group of random, blue-jerseyed, American fans who must have been drinking with us, or near to us, at the time. But I immediately spotted two other people that I recognised; Kristin and Andrew from Columbus in Ohio. I had not noticed their faces in this particular photo before. As luck would have it, those very same two people – friends of mine for a few years now – were going to meet us in the pub on the Saturday morning before the game with Forest.

As I continually say, Chelsea World is a very small world indeed.

We were all up in London at the usual time. I was parked up at around 10am. With PD still convalescing at home, his seat in my car and his seat in the stadium was taken by Glenn, my match-going friend from Frome since as long ago as 1983.

1983. You know where this is going, right?

The next match to feature in my look back at the 1982/83 season is the iconic and famous encounter against fellow strugglers Bolton Wanderers at their Burnden Park ground on Saturday 7 May 1983. In the years that have passed since this game was played, many of our supporters have bestowed upon it the title of “the most important match in Chelsea’s history” and it is easy to see why. Going in to the game we were fourth from bottom, one point below our opponents. Chelsea had been financially at risk for many a season, and the thought of dropping into the Third Division was not only depressing enough from a supporters’ perspective – the pain, the ridicule, the struggle to recover – it would also cause an extreme strain on the immediate future of the club with reduced revenues hitting hard, despite the tightening of strings inaugurated by Ken Bates over the previous twelve months.

Although my mind was full of worry about my upcoming “A Levels” in Geography, Mathematics and Technical Drawing, this was nothing compared to my concern for my beloved Chelsea Football Club.

My diary on the day tells that when I heard on the radio of Clive Walker’s low drive in the second-half giving us a 1-0 lead, I was not too elated because all of the other protagonists at the basement were also winning. However, after all the results came through, I was overjoyed. We had risen unbelievably, to fourteenth place.

I called it “quite a wonderful day.”

With emphasis on “won” no doubt.

How many Chelsea went to the game? The gate at Bolton was 8,687. The general consensus was that we took thousands. In the following week’s home programme, Ken Bates praised the “almost three-thousand” who were there. I have to say that a photograph of the away section of the ground on that rainy day in Bolton, with Chelsea playing in the all lemon kit despite no obvious colour clash, suggests that only around 1,500 were standing in a small section of terrace. However, at the time it was always a predilection for London clubs, especially, to invade the home seats at away games, so I am in no position to suggest that we did indeed not have around 3,000 up there. I know that some Chelsea were in the seats at the other end of the ground. There is another photo of the scenes at the final whistle and a good number of Chelsea fans are seen celebrating in the upper tier above a deserted home terrace along the side of the ground. The number in this section does in fact look like 1,500. So, around 1,500 on the terrace and around 1,500 in the seats. Let’s go with 3,000.

I always remember that on my first ever trip to Bolton’s new Reebok Stadium in 2004, I picked my long-time Chelsea mate Alan up en route and he told me a few stories about the game at Burnden Park in 1983. He, it goes without saying, was one of the three-thousand. I always remember how he told the story of how Breda Lee, loved by so many, was bedecked with good luck charms as she made her way up to Bolton on the Chelsea Special. Breda had lost her son Gary after a horrific incident at Preston in 1981, and would always travel on the Chelsea Special with John Bumstead’s mother Mary, and was seen by many Chelsea fans as their “Chelsea Mother.” On this day, Alan said that she was wearing a lucky four-leafed clover trinket, a lucky horseshoe, a sprig of lucky heather and was clutching a rabbit’s foot too.

It all worked.

The victorious Chelsea team that day was as follows –

Steve Francis.
Joey Jones.
Chris Hutchings.
Gary Chivers.
Micky Droy.
Colin Pates.
Mike Fillery.
John Bumstead.
Colin Lee.
Paul Canoville.
Clive Walker.

The non-playing substitute – hard to believe in this day and age – was Peter Rhoades-Brown. I love it that four players from this line-up (Chivers, Pates, Bumstead, Canoville) still take part in the match-day experience at Stamford Bridge forty years later as corporate hospitality hosts.

I salute them all. And I salute the 3,000 too.

Forty years on, the day was starting to take shape. I dropped Glenn and Parky off outside “The Eight Bells” and then met up with Ollie at Stamford Bridge once more, this time with his cousin Julien, both from Normandy. I often write about the gathering of the clans on match days and this was no exception. By the time I reached the pub at 11.30am, a gaggle of friends – old and new – were well into a session. Sitting alongside Glenn, Parky, Ollie and Julien were Kristin and Andrew, fresh from a few days in Edinburgh, and with some fellow Ohio Blues, Steve and Jake who I met on their visit in 2019, plus Jeromy and Neil, who were attending their first game at Stamford Bridge. We all got along famously. It was also superb to meet up again with Jesus, from California, who we last saw at Watford last season, and who was another chap that Parky took under our wing while he was living in London many years ago. Completing the scene was Russ, originally from Frome, who now lives in Reading and was attending his first home game for quite a while.

Everyone together, everyone happy.

Up on the platform at Putney Bridge tube, a few Forest fans were engaging in some light-hearted chat. The well-rounded vowels of their East Midlands accents made a change on match day in SW6.

“Bit of a free hit for us, this game, not expecting much but you never know.”

To be honest, we hadn’t thought too much about the actual match – probably with good reason – and Glenn admitted that he wasn’t expecting much from the game either. In our current predicament, the day was all about seeing friends and enjoying each other’s company.

Elsewhere in London, over twenty thousand Notts County fans were in town for the National League Play-Off Final against Chesterfield. One of them, Craig, a friend from college in Stoke, sent me a message to say he hoped that we were victorious against Forest. He hates Forest, does Craig.

I said to the Forest supporter “the only person worried the outcome of this game is a Notts County fan.”

This of course wasn’t strictly true, but it raised a laugh at least.

The front cover of the programme marked the exact twenty-fifth anniversary of our European Cup Winners’ Cup triumph in Stockholm against VfB Stuttgart.

A few personal memories…

A group of us went with the club to Stockholm, flying out from Gatwick on the day before the game, and flying back right after. It seems really expensive now, and it was then; £450 not including a match ticket. With inflation, that equates to just over £1,000 in today’s money. I drove up from Frome with Glenn and met up with Daryl, Andy, Mick, The Youth, Neil and Tony, three of whom still go to all the home games and many away games to this day. I always remember that on the coach in to the city from the airport, it became apparent that Chelsea had managed to split the hotels of a father and his teenage son. Tremendous. Thankfully, that faux pas was soon resolved.

We all stayed in a hotel a mile or so to the north of the city centre and that first night was as pleasurable as it gets. We went off for an Italian meal in a restaurant called “Pele” which was named after the Brazilian star’s 1958 World Cup debut in the city. We drank Spendrups lager and ate Italian as couples danced to the tango. It was a very surreal visit. Later, we found ourselves in a bar owned by the former Arsenal and Everton players Anders Limpar – the bar had the worst name ever, “The Limp Bar” – and he was serving that night. I remember a “sing-off” between Chelsea fans and an all-girl German choir. Another surreal moment.

On the day of the game, we bought some cans and soaked up the sun in a central park – I remember seeing Ruth Harding nearby – and then made our way to a crowded bar where Johnny Vaughan was spotted.

Then, back to the hotel and a nervous wait for the coach to the game. Once aboard, The Youth lead the community singing. Outside the Rasunda Stadium in Solna there were Chelsea everywhere. The gate for this game was 30,216 and we greatly outnumbered the Stuttgart fans. We must have had 25,000 there and I think everyone who travelled to Sweden got in. With road travel from the UK being highly expensive and time consuming, virtually everyone went by plane. At the time, it was the biggest single airlift out of the UK since World War Two.

Growing up as a Chelsea supporter, the twin cup triumphs of 1970 and 1971 were etched on our soul and in our psyche. For a while, the two stars on our chests celebrated those two wins. And here we were, twenty-six years on from Athens, with a chance to equal that celebrated feat.

This was a magnificent time to be a Chelsea supporter; some might argue the best of all. Glenn Hoddle had raised the profile of the club by reaching Europe in 1994, and then the signings came…Ruud Gullit, Mark Hughes, Gianluca Vialli, Gianfranco Zola. We were truly blessed. The 1997 FA Cup win under Gullit was followed by the League Cup under Vialli in 1998.

We all travelled to Sweden in May 1998 with a sense of being very capable of repeating that win in Athens.

Stuttgart were managed by Joachim Low and their star man was the striker Freddie Bobic. Their ‘keeper was Franz Wohlfahrt who had been on the receiving end of Spenny’s run in Vienna in 1994. The former German international Thomas Berthold played for them too.

Our team?

De Goey

Clarke – Leboeuf – Duberry – Granville

Petrescu – Poyet – Wise – Di Matteo

Flo – Vialli

Shades of Ryan Bertrand in Munich; Danny Granville at left-back. Vialli played Mark Hughes in the League Cup Final but he wasn’t missing out on this one.

At the game, I wore a Chelsea 1970 replica shirt and the scarf that my mother bought me after my first game in 1974.

In truth, the game wasn’t a classic, but the Chelsea fans were at our best that night in Sweden. The game hinged on a substitution. On seventy-one minutes, Gianfranco Zola replaced Tore Andre Flo. Within twenty-five seconds, Dennis Wise floated a ball through and the ball held up. Zola caught it sweetly on the half-volley and it rose all the way into the goal at our end. I was almost behind the flight of the ball.

Absolute fucking delirium.

I caught Glenn and Andy right after our goal.

In the last five minutes, Dan Petrescu was sent off but we were in control, the Germans were a spent force.

“Dambusters” rang out in Solna.

What a night. What a team. What a club.

Athens 1971. Stockholm 1998.

We had done it.

The euphoria was real. I have rarely been as happy at a Chelsea game. And yet most who were in Stockholm probably thought that it would not get any better than this. We were a cup team, no more, and the equalling of the 1970 and 1971 wins were seen as our “glass ceiling”. We knew we would never win the league…

We walked out into the Solna streets so happy. Famously, a local girl flashed her assets from a balcony as thousands of Chelsea fans walked past. We eventually found our coach.

Back at the airport, it was mayhem. There was coach after coach after coach in a massive line. In the terminal, we saw Ron Harris and Peter Osgood. Johnny Vaughan commented “it’s like the last chopper out of Saigon.”

The call went out that anyone on a Monarch flight should make their way to the departure gate. We sprinted. It was a matter of getting bodies on flights. We were lucky; we left at around 3am, on the same flight as actor Clive Mantle who I had photographed earlier outside the stadium.

Stockholm 1998 was one of the very best nights.

I’d rank the European wins that I have seen like this :

Munich.
Stockholm.
Porto.
Baku.
Amsterdam.

Incidentally, the club’s photographs from that night were taken by Mark Sandom, who sits a few rows in front of me, and I sent away for a set when I returned home. I still need to frame one or two enlargements from that game and find space for one of them in my Blue Room.

…Solna 1998 gave way to Fulham 2023.

Unfortunately, Alan was unable to make it to this game, so I sat with Clive and Glenn in The Sleepy Hollow. There were more than a few mutterings of discontent at Frank Lampard’s starting eleven, but there was pleasure in seeing Lewis Hall at left back. In came Edouard Mendy between the sticks while Mateo Kovacic, Raheem Sterling and Joao Felix started too.

Mendy

Chalobah – Silva – Badiashile – Hall

Gallagher – Enzo – Kovacic

Madueke – Felix – Sterling

The two Thiago Silva flags appeared at both ends of the stadium just before the teams entered the pitch. The one in The Shed was particularly striking. I loved it. I also loved the words of the match day announcer as he ran through the team.

“Number six, your captain, Thiago Silva.”

Despite our struggles this season, there appeared to be a near full-house at Stamford Bridge. The three-thousand Forest fans were already singing about “mist rolling in from the Trent” and their players looked smart in their plain red / white / red, a combination – the simplest of all kits – that rarely gets seen at Stamford Bridge these days.

While we huffed and puffed in the opening section of the game, The Sleepy Hollow claimed a victim, with Glenn quietly nodding off after some alcoholic fumes rolled in from the Thames. After an unlucky thirteen minutes had passed, a Forest cross from their left from Renan Lodi was bravely met by the leap of Taiwo Awoniyi, impressive in the away game on New Year’s Day, and the combined forces of Mendy, Badiashile and Silva were found lacking. The away team, in their first real attack, had struck.

The Forest fans erupted, the scorer did his best “Christ The Redeemer” and Forest players swarmed around him down below me.

Fackinell Forest.

I sent a photo of a dormant Glenn to Alan with the caption “one down.”

Our reaction was hardly immediate, and our attacks lacked precision and incision. Noni Madueke, looking so good at Bournemouth, tended to frustrate both himself and us. On one occasion, his turn was sweet but he then fell over himself. It summed up his luck. There was a shot on seventeen minutes, our first, saved, from Sterling and an effort from Hall was then blocked. Our best effort took a whole thirty minutes to arrive; a Hall cross, a Felix header, but too close to Keylor Navas in the Forest goal.

This was a really poor first-half.

Clive helped to alleviate the pain by buying us a hot chocolate apiece.

Just before the whistle, Mateo Kovacic – who has dipped in form quite shockingly of late – was replaced by Ruben Loftus-Cheek, the perennial squad player.

I was surprised that there were so few boos at the break.

Soon into the second-half, Glenn resurfaced and Russ came over to sit by us for the duration of the game. The Sleepy Hollow had undergone a significant reshuffle. We were now back to a four. Clive, who had been near suicidal during the first-half needed cheering up.

“We’ll win this 2-1 mate.”

He smiled. Or was it a grimace?

Forest, though, began the brighter and almost doubled their lead through Moussa Niakhate but his volley was blasted wide.

On fifty-one minutes, there was a nice interchange between Madueke and Trevoh Chalobah down our right and the ball was pulled back from the goal-line by Chalobah into the feet of Sterling, whose goal bound effort took a deflection before hitting the net.

Yes.

The crowd roared as Sterling briefly celebrated.

“C’MON CHELS.”

Immediately after, Forest retaliated with a tantalisingly deep cross that just evaded the nod of a red-shirted attacker.

The crowd rallied.

“CAM ON CHOWLSEA. CAM ON CHOWLSEA. CAM ON CHOWLSEA. CAM ON CHOWLSEA.”

We were playing much better now. A few half-chances, and then on fifty-eight minutes, a strong run from Loftus-Cheek in the centre was followed by a prod of the ball to Sterling, who cut inside and left his marker Joe Worrall on his arse before perfectly curling an effort into the top far corner of the goal.

Bliss.

GET IN YOU BASTARD.

His celebration, this time, was far more euphoric, and so was ours.

Clive was full of praise : “you called it.”

But this was Chelsea 2023, not Chelsea 2009 – that photo from Baltimore succinctly illustrates the cyclical nature of our sport’s teams – and just four minutes later, a ball was pushed into the six-yard box by Orel Mangala and I immediately feared danger. The ball was headed home by that man Awoniyi, with another unmarked team mate alongside him to give him moral support and guidance, with Mendy was beaten all ends up. A VAR review couldn’t save us.

Double European Champions Chelsea 2 Double European Champions Forest 2.

On seventy-three minutes, Kai Havertz replaced Felix and Hakim Ziyech replaced Madueke.

Clive threatened to leave.

I tried to give him hope.

“Sterling hat-trick mate.”

He definitely grimaced this time. But so did I.

Every time that Ziyech got the ball, either in the middle of a wriggling, shuffling dribble, or at a free-kick, I genuinely expected him to provide some magic. To be fair, his brief outing was not without merit but we could not, quite, claim the winner.

It ended 2-2.

The away fans celebrated loudly inside Stamford Bridge and out on the Fulham Road. This was a big point for them in their dogged fight to avoid an immediate relegation back to the Second Division, er The Championship.

The day seemed to be all about Nottingham. On the drive home, we were to learn that Craig’s Notts County dramatically edged out Chesterfield at Wembley, so well done to them. Forty years ago, Notts finished in a respectable fifteenth place in the First Division.

Talk about cycles.

Next up is the toughest away game of them all. I am fearing our trip to Manchester City next Sunday.

Anyone dare to join me?

Baltimore.

London.

Stockholm.

Tales From A Huge Loss

Posted on January 11, 2023 by Chris Axon

Manchester City vs.Chelsea : 8 January 2023.

I have feared that I might have to write this particular match report for a while. Ever since we heard that Gianluca Vialli had left his post with the Italian Football Federation, and was then re-admitted to the Royal Marsden Hospital before Christmas, many of us suspected the worst. Alas, on the Friday morning after our home game with Manchester City, the saddest of news broke.

Gianluca Vialli had died.

I was told the news by a work colleague in our office. I put my hands to my face and sat silent for a few moments.

This was just horrible, horrible news.

I had mentioned Luca only a few days previously in my match report for the Nottingham Forest game; that memory from almost twenty-four years ago, a crowded car-park, a photograph, an autograph, the perfect gent.

In fact, I was rather sparing with my comments about Gianluca Vialli in that report. I sensed that he didn’t have long to live. Pancreatic cancer is an obstinate foe. I erred away from saying too much about the former Chelsea player and manager. I’ll be blunt; I didn’t want to tempt fate.

That I mentioned Gianluca Vialli, though, in my last match report written while he was alive seems right.

And it also seems right that the great man took his last breath in a hospital on Fulham Road, just a few hundred yards from Stamford Bridge.

Luca, how we will miss you.

Being a big fan of Italian football in the ‘eighties, I was aware of the curly-haired striker playing for Sampdoria of Genoa, and watched with interest as he took part in the European Championships of 1988 and the World Cup of 1990. The blues of Sampdoria, with Vialli the leading scorer, won their first and only title in 1991. My first actual sighting of the man took place when I travelled to Turin in May 1992 to see Juventus and Sampdoria eke out a 0-0 draw at the Stadio Delle Alpi. Sampdoria were only a few weeks away from a European Cup Final with Barcelona at Wembley and so put in a rather conservative performance.

Not long after the loss to Barcelona, Vialli moved to Juventus for a world record £12.5M. With Juve being my favourite European team, and with Italian football being shown that season on Channel Four for the first time, I was able to keep tabs on both the progress of him and the team. In 1995, Juve won their first Italian Championship since 1986. In late 1995, I saw Vialli play for Juventus at Ibrox against Rangers in a Champions League group phase game; the visitors won 4-0, with Vialli the captain, and a certain Antonio Conte playing too. I watched in the Broomloan Stand, in a home section, but very close to the travelling away support. The Italians were on fire that night.

At the end of that season, I watched the European Cup Final in a bar in Manhattan as Juventus beat Ajax on penalties in Rome. Just over a week later, I was over on the West Coast – I remember the location, Gaviota State Park – when a ‘phone call home resulted in me learning that Gianluca Vialli had signed for Chelsea.

It truly felt that the stars were aligning.

Gianluca Vialli was to play for Chelsea. Just writing those words twenty-six years or so later still gives me goose bumps.

Of course, that 1996/97 season has gone down in Chelsea folklore for both happy and sad reasons. In addition to Vialli, the summer of 1996 brought new signings Roberto di Matteo and Frank Leboeuf to augment the previous summer’s purchases of Ruud Gullit and Mark Hughes. Our Chelsea team was certainly looking like it could seriously challenge for honours. But first, tragedy, and the death of director Matthew Harding. We all wondered if this would redirect the club’s focus, but not long after, Ruud Gullit signed another top-ranked Italian Gianfranco Zola, and the rest is history.

Ironically, we were stumbling a little before Zola signed. Looking back, I think it is fair to say that Hughes and Vialli were a little too similar in many aspects of their game, and it was the addition of Zola, a play-maker in addition to being a goal scorer, that allowed the team to reach its full potential. Manager Gullit certainly jiggled line-ups around to accommodate all three strikers, and on one memorable occasion, we were able to witness Chelsea alchemy of the very highest order.

Losing 0-2 at half-time at home to Liverpool in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup in January 1997, Gullit brought on Mark Hughes in place of Scott Minto and the triumvirate of Vialli, Zola and Hughes caused havoc in a scintillating second forty-five minutes. A swivel and turn from Sparky on fifty minutes, a delicious Zola free-kick eight minutes later, then two from Vialli on sixty-three and seventy-six minutes. Stamford Bridge was buzzing and we didn’t want the game to end. It is many Chelsea supporters’ favourite ever match. It often gets mentioned here and I do not apologise for it.

Of course we went on to win the FA Cup Final in the May of that year, our first trophy since 1971, and the appearance of Gianluca Vialli as a very late substitute for Zola resulted in the whole end yelling the great man’s name.

“VIALLI! VIALLI! VIALLI! VIALLI!”

Things never stay the same, though, at Chelsea and before we knew it, Ken Bates had dismissed Ruud Gullit after just a year and a half in charge, and chose Vialli to take on the role of player-manager. I’ll be honest, I was a little concerned, but I need not have been. In a glorious period supporting my team, Vialli won the 1998 League Cup, the 1998 ECWC, the 1998 UEFA Super Cup, the 2000 FA Cup and the 2000 Community Shield.

There has been greater success since, but I absolutely loved the vibe around the club from 1996 to 2000 – “the Vialli years” – and it is probably my favourite period supporting the club, although as a one-off season 1983/84 will never be beaten.

We came so close in 1998/99, only trailing eventual champions Manchester United by four points, but finishing third. If only we had won and not drawn our two games against United, we would have been champions, and the barbs aimed at us in 2005 would have been less prolific.

There was a lovely mix of characters at Chelsea in that era. We played some superb football at times. Ruud called it “sexy”, but I think under Vialli it became a little “cheeky” with a mix of expansive football, quick breaks, rapid-fire passing, with quality everywhere. What do I mean by “cheeky”? Think back to October 1999, Chelsea beating Manchester United 5-0, with Wisey winding up Nicky Butt. That’s what I mean.

There was style and swagger, those two Chelsea cornerstones.

As a player, I loved Vialli’s power, technique, movement, work ethic and goal scoring prowess.

As a manager, I loved his cheerfulness, his honesty, his diligence, the way he called the players his “chaps.”

I loved his big Italian tie, his sweatband, his grey pullover, his penchant for wearing a watch over his cuffs.

I’ll admit it.

He was a man’s man.

We all loved him.

Again, Chelsea being Chelsea, nothing stays the same and amidst rumours of player power, Ken Bates sacked Vialli as manager in September 2000.

I had seen the great man’s first game as a Chelsea player at Southampton in 1996 and I had seen his last game as manager at Newcastle in 2000.

Thank you Luca. We had a blast.

Vialli – I believe – continued to live in London after his departure and also had season tickets at Stamford Bridge for some, if not all, of the subsequent years. In doing a little research for this edition, I was able to plunder some photographs from a midweek game at Stamford Bridge against West Bromwich Albion on 12 February 2018. At halftime, Neil Barnett paraded three stars from the late ‘nineties and it was a glorious occasion.

My eyes were set on Gianluca Vialli. I am pretty sure it was the first time that I had seen him since he left us in 2000.

My match report from that night is called “Tales From The Class Of ‘98” and features these words.

“They slowly walked towards us in the MH and I snapped away like a fool. Each were serenaded with their own songs. They lapped it up. My goodness, it is the twentieth-anniversary season of our ECWC triumph in Stockholm, one of my favourite seasons. It is hard to believe in these days of single-strikers and “false nines” that in 1997/1998 we had the considerable luxury of four strikers.

Gianfranco Zola

Gianluca Vialli

Tore Andre Flo

Mark Hughes

And five if we include Mark Nicholls.

Bloody hell, those were the days. A two-man attack. Beautiful. Let’s get to basics here; I’d much rather see two top strikers in a starting eleven for Chelsea rather than two top holding midfielders. Who wouldn’t?

That season, we were certainly blessed. And each of the four had their own qualities, and it was always interesting to see how Ruud, and then Luca, chopped and changed the front two.

Zola – those amazing twists and turns, those dribbles, that appreciation of space, those passes to others, those goals.

Vialli – those blind-sided runs, the constant movement, the strength of that body, the willingness to run and run.

Flo – surprisingly skilful on the ground for a tall man, his touch was excellent and he weighed in with his share of goals.

Hughes – the last of his three seasons with us, but still useful for his strength in hold-up play, his galvanising effect on the team, and eye for a goal.

Glory days indeed. I loved that team those players.

Gianfranco Zola, Tore Andre Flo, Mark Hughes, Gianluca Vialli, Dan Petrescu, Frank Leboeuf, Graeme Le Saux, Gus Poyet, Dennis Wise, Roberto di Matteo, Steve Clarke, Ruud Gullit.

If anyone had said to me in 1998 that, twenty years on, only one of those players mentioned would get into my team of greatest ever Chelsea players, I would have screamed madness.”

As I looked at other photos from that evening, I gulped when I saw a photo of my friend Glenn and little old me in the hotel before the game with Ray Wilkins, who would pass away less than two months later. That night took on a new resonance for me.

Going in to the FA Cup tie at Manchester City, the focus in my mind shifted. Rather than get obsessed, and down-hearted, about a potentially tough game I realised that the whole day was now about being one of the lucky ones to be able to share our collective love for a much-respected footballer and, above all, man.

And the tributes poured in on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Not one soul said anything negative about Gianluca Vialli. He was truly loved, so loved.

Sunday arrived and I collected PD and LP and a long day lay ahead. I set off from home at just before 9am. By 12.30pm, we were ordering three roast beef Sunday lunches at “The Windmill” pub at the Tabley interchange off the M6. Two hours were spent thinking a little about the game later that afternoon but also about our recent sad loss.

My 1982/83 retrospective features, fittingly, an FA Cup game. On Saturday 8 January 1983 – forty years ago to the day – we played Huddersfield Town from the Third Division at Leeds Road. We eked out a 1-1 draw with much-maligned striker Alan Mayes equalising in the second-half. The gate was a very decent 17,064, which came just after a season-leading gate of 18,438 for a home derby with Bradford City. In those days, FA Cup Third Round gates would often be the largest of the season for many clubs, barring local derbies such as this one. I miss those days when “the Cup” was truly special.

It took the best part of an hour to reach the stadium. The expected rain hadn’t really amounted to much, but on the slow drive past City’s old stomping ground and other familiar sights, the bright winter sun reflected strikingly on the steel of new buildings and the red brick of old. In the distance, dark moody clouds loomed ominously. The quality of light was spectacular.

I dropped off PD and LP outside the away end at around 3.30pm and soon parked up. I made my way over the long footbridge that links the smaller City stadium to the main one. I had previously made a mistake in saying that I had seen only Arsenal at seven stadia. Manchester City tie that record; Stamford Bridge, Maine Road, Wembley, The Etihad, Villa Park, Yankee Stadium, Estadio Dragao. If you count the old Wembley and the new Wembley separately, they take the lead with eight.

Another bloody trophy for them.

As soon as I reached the concourse at Level Three – the top tier – there were shouts for “Vialli.”

I have to say that our support for this game blew my socks off. I originally thought that with the game taking place at 4.30pm on a Sunday, and on the back of us taking over 5,000 to the stadium for a League Cup tie in November, there would be no way that we would sell our allocation of 7,500 tickets.

But sell them we did.

Absolutely fantastic.

I was stood alongside LP in the middle of the top tier, alongside Rob, in front of Pete, close to the Two Ronnies, while PD was in the middle tier. I was just glad to be watching from a different part of the South Stand and to not have hundreds of locals jabbering away at us all game long.

The place filled up. My ticket cost just £25, a good deal.

The team was announced.

Kepa

Chalobah – Humphreys – Koulibaly – Hall

Gallagher – Jorginho – Kovacic

Ziyech – Havertz – Mount

And some new names on the bench too.

City? A mixture of youth and experience, no Haaland.

So, a debut from Graham Potter for young Bashir Humphreys.

Shall I do the inevitable line about the manager asking if he was “free” for the game on Sunday?

Nah.

Kick-off approached, the players took to the field, I soon noted the players assembling on the centre circle.

“Ah, fair play City.”

There was an announcement from a voice saying that “Manchester City was sad to hear…” but I then lost the rest of the message as the Chelsea end applauded and sang.

“VIALLI! VIALLI! VIALLI! VIALLI! VIALLI! VIALLI! VIALLI! VIALLI!”

There were images of Luca on the two corner screens; black and white images, that cheeky smile.

Bless him.

It is a mark of how I assumed that we would perform in this match that I thought that, all things considered, we had a pretty decent start to the game. Both teams began brightly. But on each of our rare forays into the City half (is it me, or does the City pitch look huge?) we quickly ran out of steam, with no target man to hit.

On nine minutes – as requested – the 7,500 strong away army chanted again.

“VIALLI! VIALLI! VIALLI! VIALLI! VIALLI! VIALLI! VIALLI! VIALLI!”

Not too long after, a mightily impressive “OMWTM” rang out and I liked the fact that a few old school types sat down at around the “eight” mark. It always was better when we all got up on ten.

The City fans must have looked on in awe.

They then had the audacity to sing “YSIFS” and I groaned.

I wondered if the fixture was reversed and there was a 4.30pm kick-off in London, how many City would come down? Not 7,500 I am sure. In the FA Cup of 2015/16, City had brought barely 2,500 down to London on Sunday 21 February. Get my point?

On the pitch, City gained the upper hand.

After twenty-three minutes played, Rob and I were worried about a City free-kick about twenty-five yards out.

Me : “I don’t like this.”

Rob : “Especially Mahrez.”

Me : “There you go. Great goal.”

Sigh.

I will be honest, I didn’t see the handball from Kai Havertz that led to a VAR decision going City’s way not long after. Julian Alvarez struck from the resultant penalty.

In the back of mind : “at least we won’t suffer the ignominy of losing four consecutive FA Cup Finals this year.”

Sigh.

Chelsea were now chasing shadows.

On thirty-eight minutes, I saw a move cut its way through our defence.

“Oh that’s too easy.”

Phil Foden pushed the ball in from close range.

Game over.

Sadly, many Chelsea fans upped and left. This was my worst nightmare; our away end full of empty seats on national television. At the break, my friend Su from Los Angeles, made her way down to watch the rest of the game with Rob, LP and me.

“It’s character building this. By the time I see you again, you will be twice the woman you are now.”

It could have been more. We were awful and in so many different ways. I felt so sorry for the debutant Humphreys, who must have wished that he was needed in haberdashery or to look after Mrs. Slocombe’s pussy.

At the break, changes.

Denis Zakaria for Kovacic, surprisingly poor.

David Datro Fofana for Ziyech, truly awful.

But there were other appearances too, and my heart began to swell. Virtually all of the Chelsea supporters that had left after the third goal thankfully returned. Unbelievable stuff. Well done each and every one of you.

Proper Chelsea.

Good God, on fifty-five minutes Mason Mount shot at goal, deflecting wide, and I even caught the bugger on film.

On sixty-three minutes, more changes.

Omari Hutchinson for the ever dreadful Ziyech.

Carney Chukwuemeka for Mount.

Hutchinson showed a lot more confidence than on his meek appearance on Thursday. The new Fofana looked decent too.

On seventy-three minutes, another change.

Azpilicueta for Jorginho, the slow-moving and irksome irritant.

I found it hard to focus on anything really. The game seemed an irrelevance. The four of us kept our spirits up with gallows humour. Around us, there were loud songs for Thomas Tuchel and Roman Abramovich.

With five minutes to go, a foul by Kalidou Koulibaly gave City their second penalty of the game.

Manchester City 4 Chelsea 0.

Sigh.

With that, an exodus started but we stayed to the final whistle.

It was, in the end, all rather predictable. However, the mood in the away end was defiant throughout. The shouts in memory of Vialli were loud, and sung with passion, while there was anger and frustration at the current regime.

We left.

A chap with his daughter remained upbeat and suggested a surreal ending to this season and a very strange one in 2023/24.

“We win the Champions League but get relegated this season.”

“Ha” I replied…

”Real Madrid and Bristol City one week, Juventus and Rotherham United the next. Love it.”

On the walk back at our car I overheard a woman – a local City fan – talking to her husband and daughter.

“City fans singing about Chelsea’s support being effing shit…well, it wasn’t was it?”

“Thanks” I said.

She smiled.

I made good time as I wriggled out of the city.

How long did it take me?

“A pasty, two small Double Deckers and half a packet of Fruit Pastilles.”

The rain stayed away as I drove south and I made good time. We didn’t dwell too much on the defeat. But it certainly felt as if we were now supporting a different team and club, almost unrecognisable in fact. And that is not good.

As the reaction to another defeat hit social media, I was reminded that this was our first exit in the Third Round of the FA Cup since that shocking 3-5 defeat by Manchester United at Stamford Bridge in January 1998; our first game since 1970 as FA Cup holders. We were 0-5 down at one stage. But I still loved that 1996 to 2000 team. Oh for some of that spirit in 2023.

I reached home at 11.15pm. It had been a long, emotional, and sad day.

Next up, a local derby at Craven Cottage. See you there.

Tales From The North By Northwest Corner

Posted on December 28, 2022 by Chris Axon

Chelsea vs. Bournemouth : 27 December 2022.

After a break of forty-five days, Chelsea were back in action. To be honest, compared to the extended hiatus due to COVID in 2020 and 2021, this had been a breeze. In fact, we had all agreed that after the Newcastle defeat, the third league loss in a row, we were clearly at a low ebb and so the enforced break came at just the right time. I know that I needed the rest too. The match at St. James’ Park was my twelfth in forty-one days.

Fackinell.

I didn’t watch a single second of the Qatar World Cup. Instead, the plan always was for me to get my football fix from watching my local team in November and December. However, due to Frome Town’s schedule getting hit with a few postponements, I only saw three games; a 4-1 home win against Slimbridge, a 0-1 defeat at Bashley and a 2-3 loss at Melksham Town. I did, however, attend a game up in Scotland in early December; a Queens Park match against Hamilton Academical that was played at their traditional Hampden Park home for the first time in a few seasons.

For the home game with Bournemouth we planned to be up in London at around midday. I had woken with not too much enthusiasm, and I must admit I felt a little guilty. Despite the fact that I hadn’t seen the team for a month or more, a home match against Bournemouth was hardly going to set the pulses racing. Such games are never a visceral assault on the senses, nor are any Boxing Day – which this effectively was – encounters these days, more’s the pity.

None of the passengers in my car were expecting too much from the game. We guessed it wasn’t set to be a feast of football. We just wanted a win, any win.

Three points was king.

But oh the guilt. I was only too aware that my enthusiasm was lacking and a dark cloud of guilt followed me up the A303 and the M3 into London. While PD and Parky began drinking at our usual hostelry, Glenn and I had decided to have a pre-game wander around Stamford Bridge and the local area. We found ourselves in the Copthorne Hotel way before the match day crowds would appear. The bar area was quiet. I spotted a favourite photograph on a wall, far from the madding crowd, and it is one that always brings a smile to my face.

I love this.

There is so much to take in.

The four players are John Boyle, Terry Venables, Ron Harris and Eddie McCreadie. The photo is from around 1965, and I always think that the photographer is about to get pelted with those recently formed snowballs. There are a couple of other players in the frame too. The pitch has evidently been cleared of snow and you just wonder what sort of a mammoth task that must have been. I have an image of the regular ground staff being augmented by a legion of apprentices, armed with brushes, rakes, spades and shovels, clearing the pitch in preparation of the upcoming game. I am sure that I can spy the traps of the greyhound racing beyond the players. The crush barriers on The Shed terrace are clearly those patented by Archibald Leitch, the Glaswegian architect responsible for so many of the old stadia in Britain, who not only designed stands and terracings, but crush barriers too. Those originals were eventually replaced in the mid-seventies by an altogether different design. I can see what might well be braziers, equally placed on the mid-terrace walkway, presumably lit with coal or wood to clear those walkways of snow and ice. And look at the Harlem Globetrotter shorts, which I remember, from colour photos in various publications, being red and red stripes. I can’t even imagine how Chelsea ended up with those.

Snow, striped shorts, snowballs and The Shed.

It’s a classic, eh?

Despite the brief appearance of some snow and some decidedly cold temperatures during the week before Christmas, this particular day was much milder, but with rain forecast to hit London later.

Glenn and I circumnavigated the stadium and I took a few photographs of the pre-match scene. We chatted a little about the club wanting to purchase the land currently owned by the Oswald Stoll Foundation, and we await further details of how all of that extra land might aid a stadium upgrade. If nothing else, it will surely assist in the thorny topic of entrance and egress.

There’s new signage atop the central column of the West Stand facade. God knows why.

We walked up the deserted King’s Road – admittedly the game was still four hours away – but bloody hell it was quiet. We stayed to the east of Stamford Bridge – Chelsea, not Fulham – and there was just no sign that there was a top-ranking game of football taking place half a mile away. Heading north to the Fulham Road, we stumbled across a previously unvisited pub, “The Sporting Page”, and we dipped in alongside four other drinkers. In my quest to visit every hostelry within two miles of Stamford Bridge, I had ticked another one off the list.

On our wander around the deserted streets of SW10, Glenn had admitted that he had been far from enthused about the game against Bournemouth and this made me feel a little better about myself…that I wasn’t in the boat alone.

We briefly touched on my retrospective of the 1982/83 season.

And so.

13 November 1982 : Barnsley 1 Chelsea 1 – 13,286.

My diary entry for this day starts with a brief synopsis of events at Oakwell.

“We were one-nil up at half-time so a bit fed-up we only drew 1-1. That’s our sixth draw this season. Gary Locke was sent off – pillock.”

Our goal was scored by Mike Fillery, who was probably our best player at the time and possibly the most adored. Born in Mitcham, he had come through the ranks and debuted during the end of the dreadful relegation season of 1978/79. He soon became a crowd favourite in the Second Division seasons that followed, where his stylish passing and scoring ability shone in many games. He was left-footed, and could piece together some lovely passes. He had a languid style, but was never one for a 50/50 tackle, and I can see him gliding around the pitch to this day.

20 November 1982 : Chelsea 1 Shrewsbury Town 2 – 8,690.

A week after, another Saturday, and my diary began with a depressing moan.

“How the hell can Chelsea lose at home to a snotty little team like Shrewsbury? That means that we have only won four games out of fifteen. And we are away to Rotherham next week. Oh dear. Please God don’t let Rotherham score six against us again. All I can say is that Chelsea must be shit.”

The seventeen-year-old me was clearly unimpressed. Indeed, this was a very poor result. It was goal-less at half-time, and Colin Lee scored for us but the visitors nabbed two. Just as worrying as the result was the crowd figure. Although attendances had dipped to below 10,000 in the closing stages of the previous season – the nadir being 6,009 for the London derby with Orient – this was the first sub 10,000 gate of 1982/83. I remember being pretty depressed about the state of the club after this game and my previously positive spin on our squad seemed to be based on fantasy and not fact. I had been off school with mumps for a week too, so life was pretty depressing in late November 1982.

27 November 1982 : Rotherham United 1 Chelsea 0 – 8,793.

In the previous season, we had lost both games against Rotherham United by the horrific aggregate score of 1-10. We had lost 0-6 at Millmoor in October and then 1-4 at Stamford Bridge in March. The 0-6 loss is often cited as our most embarrassing defeat. I can understand that. In the circumstances, a narrow 0-1 loss in 1982/83 could almost be seen as a moral victory. Yes, dear reader, things really were that bad forty years ago. The game also marked the Chelsea debut of Mark Falco, on-loan from the hated Tottenham, and this was regarded as pretty much a low point in the credibility of the club. A loanee from Tottenham? Good fucking grief. My diary summed it up.

“A bit depressed about Chelsea. No promotion again.”

4 December 1982 : Chelsea 2 Burnley 1 – 8,184.

Out of nowhere, an upturn in my fortunes. Not only was a girl in the Lower Sixth, Rachel, showing interest in me – the fool – Chelsea managed to eke out a slender 2-1 victory against Burnley at Stamford Bridge. Goals from Micky Droy and David Speedie, both in the first-half, gave us three points and my diary even conceded that I was happy with the 8,184 gate as I had expected one of around 6,000. The game marked the home debut of Falco, and I can only imagine the horror. This time it was the turn for Colin Lee to get sent-off. But, the three points were all that mattered.

11 December 1982 : Middlesbrough 3 Chelsea 1 – 8,836.

My diary entries throughout the week detailed my futile attempts to summon up enough courage to ask Rachel out. A couple of words, exchanges, took place, but I am afraid my shyness had got the better of me. On the Saturday, Chelsea travelled up to a probably cold and hostile Ayresome Park where John Neal’s team lost 3-1 against his former club. Mike Fillery scored our solitary goal via a penalty. In the home team was former Chelsea youngster Paul Ward and in the ‘Boro team, future Chelsea midfielder Darren Wood. Amid my fluttering heartbeats, my diary ended with a blunt message.

“Chelsea sont merde.”

18 December 1982 : Chelsea 2 Bolton Wanderers 1 – 6,903.

On the Monday after the Middlesbrough game, at a Sixth-Form Disco, my shyness disappeared and all was good with the world. Rachel and I danced the night away. I always remember that as I tentatively approached her on the dance-floor for the first time, the bastard DJ started playing “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye, and there is no need for a punchline. Throughout the week, we chatted a little and exchanged Christmas cards.

On the day of the Bolton game, the last Saturday before Christmas, I was called in to assist at my father’s menswear shop in Frome. It was the first time that I had worked a shift in his shop. After a nervous start, I almost enjoyed it. I never really saw myself as a salesman. My father always had a little wireless tucked away on his desk in the small office and it would have been via this medium that I would have heard that Chelsea had scrambled a narrow 2-1 win against Bolton. The goals came from Colin Pates and an own goal. Bloody hell, a love interest and a Chelsea win. What on Earth was happening?

27 December 1982 : Queens Park Rangers 1 Chelsea 2 – 23,744.

On the Monday after the Bolton win, I had planned to meet Rachel in a pub in Frome with some friends, but she never showed up. Bollocks. My World caved in. I plucked up enough courage to ‘phone her the next evening but she was non-committal about future plans.

“Back to Chelsea, mate” I no doubt thought to myself. Rachel, in fact, favoured the hated Manchester United and there is no need for a punchline here either.

Christmas 1982 was a pretty dull one. However, I was pleased to be heading up to Stamford Bridge on 28 December for the Fulham game at Stamford Bridge. It would act as an emotional safety harness after my recent romantic rebuttal. However, the day before it we visited QPR for another West London derby. At Christmas 1981, we had won 2-0 on their plastic pitch, and – miracles at Yuletide – in 1982 we won again. The goals came from Clive Walker and David Speedie as QPR were beaten 2-1.

I always remember that the attendances on this particular day were monumental, and I was so pleased that football could still attract such numbers at a time when gates, not just ours, were plummeting.

These were the First Division games, and the attendance at St. Andrews really shocked me; it was almost three times their average.

Arsenal vs. Tottenham – 51,497 /average 24,153.

Birmingham City vs. Aston Villa – 43,864 / average 15,593.

Brighton vs. Southampton – 21,794 / average 14,673.

Ipswich Town vs. Norwich City – 29,596 / average 19,679.

Liverpool vs. Manchester City – 44,664 / average 34,836.

Luton Town vs. Watford – 21,145 / average 13,429

Manchester United vs. Sunderland – 47,783 / average 41,574.

Nottingham Forest vs. Coventry City – 24,487 / average 17,567.

Stoke City vs. Everton – 25,427 / average 16,631.

West Bromwich Albion vs. Notts. County – 17,756 / average 15,258.

West Ham United vs. Swansea – 23,843 / average 22,774.

In retrospect, they don’t look too large do they? But in 1982/83, the average gate in Division One was just 20,158. My diary noted that I hoped for 20,000 for the Chelsea vs. Fulham game on Tuesday 28 December 1982.

From a Christmas past, to a Christmas present.

We headed west to Stamford Bridge and the pubs of Fulham. We were soon back in familiar territory.

Down in deepest SW6, at “The Eight Bells”, we joined forces with PD and Parky, alongside Salisbury Steve. This pub was pretty quiet too. But it was good to be back. It is the epitome of the word “cosy”; wooden-panelled walls were festooned with old prints of old river traffic and old London scenes, tables, settles and chairs were squeezed miraculously in, a chalkboard described the food on offer, pint glasses and wine glasses were stacked above the bar, a Christmas tree twinkled in the corner. I half expected Bob Cratchit to hobble in and ask for a pint of porter.

Outside, the rain was falling. It was time to make a move.

We were inside Stamford Bridge with well over half-an-hour to go. The team was announced and it looked like a standard 4/3/3.

Kepa

James – Silva – Koulibaly – Cucarella

Zakaria – Jorginho – Mount

Sterling – Havertz – Pulisic

Before the game, we observed a minute of applause for George Cohen, a member of the England 1966 World Cup winning team who recently passed away.

RIP.

A quick scan around. A few empty seats. Around two thousand away fans. The night had fallen. The rain continued.

However, my pre-match vibe hadn’t really improved.

“We’re World Champions, but we’re half a team.”

A few agreed.

My match day companions in the North by Northwest corner of Stamford Bridge arrived.

John, Gary, Alan, PD, Clive, JD, Kev and Anna, Paul.

For the first time in ages, Glenn was down in The Shed. Since the rebuild in 1997, we all agreed that he had only seen a game down there once before; in the upper tier alongside Alan and myself for the Vicenza game on a rainy night in 1998. On this occasion, he was a few yards away from Parky.

Despite my negativity, we began brightly, less laboured than in recent games, and a thrusting run from deep from Christian Pulisic showed our intent. There was an early Bournemouth free-kick from Phillip Billings that Kepa easily saved. A strong low cross fizzed in from our right but there was nobody in the box to connect. Soon after, a header from kai Havertz did not worry Mark Travers in the Bournemouth goal. A fine ball in from Kalidou Kouilbaly set up Pulisic but as his shot was released, there appeared to be a shirt pull. Alas, no penalty was given. But this was a good positive start from us.

Soon after, on sixteen minutes, while Alan and I were abusing Clive for watching Arsenal on TV, a nice move developed. Mount to Raheem Sterling and a low skidder of a cross that had just enough legs and drift on it to reach Kai Havertz, who delicately prodded it home.

Phew.

The stadium, however, was hardly bubbling over with noise. But things would improve ten minutes later when a move again developed down our right. A neat series of passes moved the ball on and Havertz kept the move alive. The ball was pushed back by Havertz to Mount and his sweetly-placed shot nestled inside the right-hand post.

Excellent stuff.

There were a few late chances for us as the first-half was played out, with Denis Zakaria looking a fine player in midfield and Thiago Silva as impressive as ever in defence. Travers saved well at the near post after a strong shot towards goal from Sterling. Another penalty shout for a foul on Havertz was waved away.

As the referee blew for the half-time whistle, I was full of praise.

“Nice one Chels. Well done.”

Alas, the second-half did not run along similar lines. After just eight minutes into the second period, a player went down on the far touchline. A quick scan of other players confirmed my darkest fears.

“It’s Reece.”

He walked off and we wondered how serious this latest setback would be. He was replaced by Dave.

A lovely move ended with a Zakaria shot being deflected over and we enjoyed a little pressure. On fifty-eight minutes Havertz forced his way into the box with a strong dribble but screwed his shot wide.

An effort from Mount, a wild shot from Pulisic, a header from Zakaria and that was about it.

We really faded in the last quarter, inviting them on, and barely able to maintain possession when needed. Too often our passes were mishit, too often we gave them too much space.

Some changes.

Conor Gallagher for Zakaria.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang for Pulisic.

Trevoh Chalobah for Sterling.

A fine save, down low, from Kepa at his near post kept Bournemouth at bay, but they definitely finished the stronger. In their Denis the Menace colours, I half expected them to claim a goal to set up a nervous finale. Kepa certainly earned his colours late on. Thankfully, their menacing came to nothing.

Chelsea 2 Bournemouth 0.

We climbed to eighth.

I battled some awful weather along the M4 on the drive home, but thoughts were already on our next match.

“It’s great that we have a game at Forest next. It’s not a new ground, but it seems like it. A new experience. Our first visit in decades. Just what we need to keep our spirits up. And our interest.”

See you there.

xxx

Tales From The Memory Game

Posted on October 22, 2021 by Chris Axon

Chelsea vs. Malmo : 20 October 2021.

Ahead of the game with Malmo, we had assembled in “Simmons” as per our normal midweek match at Stamford Bridge. When we arrived at around 6.15pm, it was pretty quiet. For once, Chelsea supporters were definitely in the minority. In fact, with most of the Chelsea fans present being of around the same age, not only were we outnumbered, we felt a little out of place too. The rest of the fellow revellers were in their teens. Since school desks make up a fair proportion of tables in this cosy bar, I had a wry smile to myself. There was a Guernsey reunion – an old school one at that – with my friends Daryl, Neil, Chris and Simon meeting up for a few beers, along with Simon and Daryl’s two lads. This was the first time I had seen Neil since before lockdown in 2020 and it was great to see him again. Daryl and Neil, brothers, went down to Kingstonian in the afternoon to watch the Chelsea and Malmo under-nineteen teams do battle, a game that Chelsea won 4-2 after being 2-0 down.

Daryl said that while he was at the game, our Europa League match against Malmo in 2019 was brought up. Rather sheepishly, he admitted that he had forgotten that the score was a 3-0 win. I smiled and replied that I had completely forgotten the score too.

How is it that we can remember scores in games against Notts County and Luton Town in 1980, but not from a few years back? I had a similar – brief – conversation with Nick The Whip on the walk from “The Goose” too. Nick is in his ‘seventies – though looks younger – and has a fantastic encyclopaedic knowledge of all the Chelsea games that he has attended, and I am always staggered by his memory. In the brief few minutes we spent walking along the North End Road, he mentioned a couple of games we played against Bury.

Yes, he’s that old.

“But I can’t remember last season’s games.”

Me and Nick both.

My very vague memory of the Malmo game was of their fans. They made a very impressive din, full of noise, and I remember flares too. We wondered how many of their fans would show up in London on this October evening. Surely more than the twenty or thirty Zenit fans in the first group phase game.

I guess it’s only natural that some games remain in the memory more than others. This would be my one hundred and fourth European game at Stamford Bridge. So many fine games. So many battles. So much emotion. Seven have featured Barcelona, five against Liverpool, four against Valencia, Porto and PSG. It is so annoying that the one visit of Real Madrid was played in a vacuum last season.

But here’s a quick exercise in memory recall. Off the top of my head, I would name these ten games as my favourites, in chronological order, not to prove any particular point but to stir some lovely memories of some magical nights under the lights in SW6.

Chelsea vs. Viktoria Zizkov 1994 : the first-one, a hand-shake with Matthew Harding in the pub beforehand, a wet old evening, but an absolutely wonderful occasion.

Chelsea vs. Bruges 1995 : a very noisy night as we swept past Bruges and some say the noisiest in modern times at Stamford Bridge despite a gate of only 28,000.

Chelsea vs. Vicenza 1998 : another wet night, but a stunning performance with three goals from Poyet, Zola and Hughes sending us through to our first European Final since 1971.

Chelsea vs. Milan 1999 : our first Champions League group phase game at home and despite a 0-0 draw, a very intense atmosphere and an equally impressive display against a crack opponent.

Chelsea vs. Barcelona 2000 : we were soon 3-0 up amid hysterical scenes and the noise was again on another level. But oh that away goal.

Chelsea vs. Barcelona 2005 : probably my favourite ever game at Chelsea in terms of excitement, pride and enjoyment. Nights hardly get any better.

Chelsea vs. Liverpool 2008 : a superb win, and the drama of Frank Lampard’s penalty, as we made it to our first ever Champions League Final.

Chelsea vs. Liverpool 2009 : the ridiculous 4-4 draw, just a crazy night against our rivals, that had us all checking our calculators to see how safe we were.

Chelsea vs. Napoli 2012 : another stupendous night, and an incredible recovery considering we presumed ourselves dead and buried after the first leg.

Chelsea vs. Eintracht Frankfurt 2019 : a surprise choice, but a big night for me since I had gambled on us getting to Baku. My elation after Eden’s penalty was off the scale.

I first saw Malmo in the flesh on a stag-weekend in Dublin in 1991, but as I have already recalled that game on two separate occasions, I’ll pass this time.

We were in the ground at around 7.45pm. There had been light queues at the turnstiles and for the first time this season, nobody had bothered to check my COVID19 status. I looked over at The Shed and was impressed with the 1,000 away fans and their decent selection of banners. Many were draped in team scarves.

How cute.

This was a game that we had to win. After the loss against Juventus, there was no other option available. I had no problems with the manager’s team selection. Both Timo and Romelu needed goals to get themselves back in the groove, so I had no issues with them starting.

Mendy

Christensen – Silva – Rudiger

Azpilcueta – Kante – Jorginho – Chilwell

Mount – Lukaku – Werner

Another near full house, and a superb effort from all involved. This was another busy spell with five games in fifteen days.

I loved the atmosphere at the start of the match, and it’s not always the case for these group phase games. Although I could visibly discern that the away fans were bouncing around and singing heartily, the sound didn’t carry particularly well. There was, after all, only a thousand of them. The Matthew Harding was in very fine form, even if we overdid the “Champions of Europe” thing a bit. The noise rattled around Stamford Bridge and, who knows, maybe it helped the team because we certainly began well, with plenty of attacking verve.

A few chances had threatened Dahlin in the Malmo goal before, on nine minutes, Thiago Silva crossed from deep into the box. Andreas Christensen did well to adjust and stab the ball in. A first Chelsea goal for our great Dane against the Swedes.

The rain started to fall heavily.

PD leaned over : “another wet walk back to the car?”

On twenty-one minutes, a swift break found the quick feet of Werner, who played in Lukaku. The Belgian toyed with his marker as he advanced into the box and was just about to take aim on the edge of the six-yard box when his legs were taken from under him. A definite penalty. But Lukaku was on the floor for ages after the foul.

We all wondered if Jorginho would deviate from his Plan A. Deviate he did; rather than a stop, a skip and a prod to his right, the ‘keeper went to the right as the ball went central / left. Easy.

And this was easy.

Lukaku hobbled to the half-way line and I hoped he could run off his injury but he was quickly replaced by Kai Havertz, the hero of Porto.

Malmo would only have one real attack and one goal attempt during the first-half. We completely dominated. I hoped that the away fans had enjoyed their sightseeing in London during the day because I doubted that they were going to get any pleasure from their team. However, to their credit, their fans never stopped singing and offering encouragement. Fair play to the fair haired ones.

A Rudiger run from deep sent us all dizzy with excitement – “shoot” – and this is now his trademark. I love it.

Behind me in the Matthew Harding Upper, I heard an Arsenal chant.

And it annoyed me.

“What do we think of shit?

“Tottenham.”

“What do we think of Tottenham?”

“Shit.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s alright.”

I glowered. For fuck sake. This must not continue.

Go to your rooms.

A shot from Chilwell, a shot from Havertz, we were all over Malmo.

We heard that Manchester United were 0-2 down at home against Atalanta. This engineered a related song from the lower tier.

“Chelsea boys are on a bender. Cristiano’s a sex offender.”

Late on in the half, Timo Werner pulled up and we collectively grimaced. He was replaced by Callum Hudson-Odoi, who joined Kai and Mason in a rather lightweight attacking trio. I could hear all the internet nerds getting high and mighty.

“See. I told you Tuchel should not have started Werner and Lukaku. Where’s my Playstation?”

As the half drew to a close, I commented to PD and Rich from Edinburgh “we should be more than two goals to the good here.” And it was true. We had completely dominated. Malmo looked poor, so poor.

At the break, the Malmo manager said “move over, Dahlin” and replaced the ‘keeper with Diawara.

Lo and behold, the second-half began with a rare Malmo break. As the move broke down on our left, the ball was played to Our Callum, who ran and ran and ran. He avoided an easier ball into the middle to Mount and instead found the overlapping Havertz. With the pink clad ‘keeper out of his goal, a delicate dink sent the ball into the goal off the far post.

Silky.

Diawara had not yet touched the ball.

We were three-up and I was hoping for six.

From the Matthew Harding choir :

“You’re shit but your birds are fit.”

We continued to dominate, and on fifty-seven minutes a great bit of “nibbling” from Rudiger wrestled the ball from a Malmo midfielder. The ball ran to Haverzt, who played it back to Rudi. An industrial challenge gave the referee no option but to award another penalty.

Jorginho stepped up, and again the spot-kick went centre / left, although the skip probably sent the ‘keeper the wrong way. I think it is safe to say that after mixing it a little of late, opposing ‘keepers had best throw away their notes on Jorginho’s penalty techniques. Because nobody knows what he is going to do now.

Meanwhile, United had clawed it back to 2-2 at Old Trafford.

Shots from Hudson-Odoi and Kante were smashed goalwards.

Saul Niguez replaced King Kante.

Marcos Alonso and Reece James were late substitutes too.

Instead of six goals, or even five, the chances were squandered and it looked like no further goals would ensue.

Bastard Ronaldo had scored and United were winning 3-2.

That’s for all those in the lower tier, tempting fate earlier.

When that man Rudiger blasted into row ten of the Matthew Harding Upper, many spectators upped and headed for the exits.

At the final whistle, Chelsea 4 Malmo 0.

“We should have scored seven or eight.”

I had enjoyed the game. It was another tick on my journey back to football.

It was just a bit ironic, though, that on a night when Tuchel was hoping to kick-start the Lukaku and Werner scoring tandem, it was last season’s top scorer Jorginho who led the way with two penalties.

Outside, the spectators scurried away into the night and – yes – we got soaked once again.

Fackinell.

On the drive back home to the West of England, PD battled against torrential rain, huge puddles of surface water, debris on the roads, and fallen trees. I eventually made it home at about 1.30am.

We play Norwich City at Stamford Bridge on Saturday and I’m bringing my boots. With our lack of a decent strike force, I fancy a shot at leading the attack.

See you there.

Tales From Our Time In The Sun

Posted on August 17, 2021 by Chris Axon

Chelsea vs. Villareal : 11 August 2021.

There was a moment in The Harp bar in Belfast’s historic and beguiling Cathedral Quarter that will live with me for a while. Parky and I had met up with our good friends from Edinburgh Gillian, Kev and Rich at just after 2pm on the day of the game. We were then joined by old friends Daryl, Ed, Gary and Pete in our favourite Belfast bar. We loved the décor, the attentive staff, the choice of beers – including draft Peroni – and the excellent music. We had crowded around a couple of tables for a few hours and had been predictably catching up with each other after almost a year and a half apart. There was the usual flow of stories, jokes and laughter but also – in these rather odd times in which we have found ourselves – a few sobering tales of health issues, of how we tried to overcome the stresses of lockdown and a few fleeting mentions of Chelsea Football Club where time permitted. The time, of course, absolutely flew past. The kick-off between Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea and Unai Emery’s Villareal was at 8pm. We had decided to leave for Windsor Park at around 6pm, but I was hoping for some sort of suspension of time so that we could just enjoy this wonderful pre-match for a few precious moments more.

And then things improved further still. One of the bar staff decided to open the concertina windows that fronted onto the narrow street outside. The sunlight suddenly shone into the bar, and the late afternoon air immediately hit us.

It seemed that after our yearlong hibernation from watching Chelsea, we were now catapulted into a warm – and warming – future.

“After those dark, bleak months away from Chelsea, this is our time in the sun boys.”

It really was sheer bliss. We were all livened by the sun’s rays.

We got more beers in.

Perfect.

There was a time when the city of Belfast in Northern Ireland would have been a no-go for me. Even as recently as twenty years ago, it seemed a rather intimidating place, as it endeavoured to escape the shackles of its sectarian past. When I started travelling around Europe independently and also with friends, Belfast was simply a place too far. I can remember being genuinely scared of the city, a result of watching all of those awful images on TV in the ‘seventies of bombs and desolation. For a while, it seemed that every time I stayed up late on a Saturday night in the early ‘seventies to watch “Match Of The Day”, there would be harrowing film of a city under siege on the preceding news on BBC1. Names such as the Falls Road, the Shankhill Road, the Crumlin Road and Divis Flats have stayed in my consciousness from early those days.

Thankfully, times have changed. For a few years I have been promising myself a trip to Belfast – EasyJet run cheap flights from nearby Bristol – so there was a sense of real joy when it became apparent that Belfast would be hosting the 2021 UEFA Super Cup Final. I love the way that Chelsea has dragged me to some of the cities that I have always wanted to visit; Moscow, Jerusalem, Tokyo, Beijing…St. Petersburg is waiting in the wings.

What luck.

Not long after our – still – surprising journey to this Champions League Final and subsequent victory against Manchester City, it did not take me long at all to book flights and a hotel to Belfast. I managed to coerce Parky to join me. We would be in town for three long days. Compared to the stresses of last summer, this year has been a relative breeze at work but I have to admit the thought of a lovely Chelsea-fuelled break in Belfast has kept me going when things darkened a little.

I was, deep down, hoping to be something of a lucky charm for Chelsea. I have only ever attended one UEFA Super Cup before, the only one where we have been victorious; our first one in Monaco in 1998. I did not travel again to Monaco in 2012, nor Prague in 2013 nor Istanbul in 2019.

But Monaco 1998. What a trip.

As winners of the European Cup Winners’ Cup against Joachim Low’s Stuttgart, Gianluca Vialli’s Chelsea were assured of a place in the subsequent Super Cup match against Guus Hiddink’s Real Madrid – winners of the European Cup against Juventus – in Monaco in August. Of course, in those days both finals were held on Wednesdays. We won in Stockholm on 13 May, then had to wait a week to see who we would be playing. It will surprise nobody that I was hoping that Juventus would be our opposition in Monaco. It would have been my dream matchup, even though we would have been ridiculously out-numbered by the Italians with Turin only a few hours away. But just as we won in Sweden with a single goal from Gianfranco Zola, it was the Castilians who triumphed by the same score in Amsterdam with a goal from Predrag Mijatovic.

At the time of the game in Sweden, I was famously unemployed; I had lost my job the previous month. But by the time that August came around, I had moved into a very satisfying job in logistics, although those first few months were pretty frantic. But my employer granted me time off at the end of the month, so all was well. A company called Millwest – a Manchester sports travel firm, formerly Universal – had advertised a four-day coach trip to the South of France that included a night in nearby Nice for a decent price of £129. The match ticket was extra.

My mate Andy – who travelled to Porto with me in May this year – was the only one of my close Chelsea mates that fancied it. The season was two games old. I didn’t attend the opening 1-2 loss at Coventry City, but was at the following weekend’s 1-1 draw at home to Newcastle United. New players included Brian Laudrup, Pierluigi Casiraghi, Albert Ferrer and Marcel Desailly. It was a considerable upgrade to our squad.

Andy and I met up at a pub near Victoria around lunchtime on the Thursday ahead of the game in Monaco on the Friday evening. We boarded the coach and started talking to our travel companions. I think we semi-recognised a few from The Harwood Arms which was one of the hardcore pubs around that time. I remember a gaggle of lads from Highbridge in Somerset who had brought along a few flagons of the local “Rich’s” cider. One lad – Jamie – I see on odd occasions to this day. One of his crew was a lad who wasn’t really into football, attending his first-ever game, and bore an uncanny resemblance to serial killer Fred West. I remember a lad who was Tommy Langley’s cousin on the coach. Most were blokes. Virtually all in fact. Once in France, we stopped at the “Eastenders” wholesale drinks warehouse and stocked up on beer and cheese. The banter among new friends slowly faded away as we all fell asleep on the ten-hour drive south. We all occupied double seats. There was plenty of room.

Not long after waking on the Friday morning the coach broke down on the wide approach towards the coast. We were only shy of our destination by around twenty miles. After a couple of nervous hours on the side of the motorway, we eventually limped into Nice. We sensed that the relationship between the drivers, an American and a Canadian, was already strained. Our surprisingly good quality hotel was on the western end of Promenade D’Anglais, the main road that hugged the beach. We were suitably impressed.

A quick change around lunchtime and then a bus into the town centre. Typically, we bumped into Jonesy from Andy’s home town of Nuneaton. We plotted up at a table and enjoyed some beer and pizza.

We later found ourselves outside a bar at the main station at Nice, where a decade or so earlier I had slept al fresco on my travels around Europe as I waited for an early morning train into Italy. Andy spotted Hicky in the distance, the first time I had seen him since the ‘eighties, a visitor from Thailand and at one time the nation’s most infamous football hooligan. We hopped on a train for the short twenty minute into Monaco. The stadium is a stone’s throw from the train station.

The pre-match was memorable for Andy’s altercation with the Labour MP and Chelsea supporter Tony Banks outside the VIP entrance.

Previously, the Super Cup had been played over two legs.

1998 was the first year of it being played in Monaco where it resided until 2012. It was always held on the same weekend as the UEFA draws and I believe most draws were made in Monaco during that era.

Of course, the Monaco stadium is an odd creation. The pitch is famously above several stories of facilities including a basketball arena and a car park. It holds 16,000 but the gate on that night in 1998 was 11,589. My guess is that no more than one thousand Chelsea supporters were present. We were allocated the open away end with its nine high arches at the rear of the yellow seats.

It was a case of “sit where you like” and Andy and I chose to stand behind the goal.

Chelsea played in all blue, which was considered unlucky by many until we won the league at Bolton in 2005 in that colour combination.

I remember little of the game. I think the pitch was pretty bumpy and didn’t play true. Real Madrid had many more supporters than us at the opposite end; maybe four thousand. Real’s team included Roberto Carlos, Christian Panucci, Fernando Hierro, Clarence Seedorf and Raul. They were no mugs for sure. But we won it with a solitary goal from Gus Poyet in the eighty-third minute, a low strike at our end. I remember our new signing Brian Laudrup made his debut for us just after our goal.

At the time, it seemed we were invincible in the cup competitions.

1997 FA Cup

1998 Football League Cup

1998 European Cup Winners’ Cup

1998 UEFA Super Cup

After the game, Andy uttered the famous line…

“In a bar in Madrid right now, there’s an old Real Madrid fan who is saying” –

“Chelsea. They always beat us.”

We hopped onto a waiting train, triumphant. We enjoyed a few more beers before calling it a night.

In the morning, we were to learn that out on the promenade in the small hours of Saturday morning, Fred West had an altercation of his own with a woman who revealed herself to be a transvestite and then, if that wasn’t enough a shock for our Fred – after a little provocation from what I remember – drew a pistol and fired a few shots into the air. Fred West raced back to the safety of the hotel and according to Jamie when I saw him a few years back has not been seen at a game since.

On the Saturday, we dipped into Nice again for a few more beers and a bite to eat. These were simply super times. The Chelsea stories came thick and fast. This was all a bit like the second coming of Chelsea; we were all in love with the 1970/71 team and here we were witnessing a repeat in 1997/98.

We caught a cab back to the hotel and I can remember this moment as if it was yesterday.

A little boozy, light-headed with beers, the window open, laughter from my new-found friends alongside me, the Mediterranean sky overhead, the warm air brushing my cheeks, high on life, high on Chelsea, high on everything.

It was my time in the sun, and one that I was to repeat twenty-three years later.

Super.

But this was to be the briefest of away trips in reality. We left for the long return trip home during early afternoon on the Saturday.

Sadly, the coach broke down again near Marseille. A few lads needed to be back in the UK on the Sunday so got off and caught a cab to Marseille airport. There followed another frustrating wait for a few hours. Eventually we got going. I slept fitfully. I remember sitting in a French service station eating a dodgy sandwich around midnight when the news broke that one of the coach drivers had stormed off in a moody fit. I can recollect seeing him walking away with his little bag on wheels being towed behind him. We pleaded with him to return. One driver would not be able to get us to Calais in light of the driving regulations. Eventually he relented. On the approach to Calais there was a further fuel leak and the coach limped home. On the motorway back in Blighty, we pulled into a services and changed coaches. We arrived back in London at around 5pm on the Sunday, a good five hours later than planned.

It was, as we joked, a character-building trip and one that always brings a smile of happiness when Andy and I remember it.

Twenty-three years ago, though.

Fackinell.

Postcards From Monaco.

The trip to the 2021 Super Cup had begun for me with an early alarm at 2am in the small hours of Tuesday, the day before the game. I collected Parky at 4am. By 5am we had arrived at Bristol Airport. It was no surprise that we saw a gaggle of familiar Chelsea faces from the West of England on our 7am flight to Belfast International Airport. There were around thirty Chelsea on the flight which lasted less than an hour. Friends Foxy from Dundee and Rich from Edinburgh were waiting for us outside the terminal and we soon hopped into a cab to take us into the city. We were joined by Jason from Newport, who decided to swap his accommodation in favour of the last room that was available at our – cheaper – hotel just south of the city centre.

We set off on a walkabout.

Foxy had visited Belfast on many occasions and so walked and talked us through the city centre. Parky had first visited the city with the British army on two tours in the early ‘seventies. After an Ulster Fry breakfast in the Cathedral Quarter, we decided to head down to Sandy Row, something of a loyalist stronghold, and we dived into a pub called “The Royal” at just after 11am. It was packed, and packed with some very familiar faces. We supped the first beers of the trip and bumped into Daryl and Ed quite by chance. There were nearby murals of George Best, of Hurricane Higgins, of local factory workers, of normal Belfast folk, but also of Joe Bambrick – Linfield and Northern Ireland – who also played for us in the 1930’s. Playing for Linfield, he scored a staggering 286 goals in 183 games. We returned to the city centre for another beer in “Fibber Magees.”

Parky and I then embarked on a pre-paid black cab tour of the city. Our guide – a cabbie called Kieran – was wearing a Leeds United away shirt and was full of smiles when I noticed it.

“Are you Leeds?”

“No, Chelsea.”

The tour was supposed to last an hour, but it lasted two and a quarter hours. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The photographs show some of the sights that we visited. It was – of course – rather eerie to find myself walking along the Falls Road and the Shankhill. More learned and erudite students of the history of this particular part of the world are far better placed than myself to comment on Belfast’s sectarian past. Suffice to say, that afternoon will live long in my memory.

I leave this section of my Belfast story to the lead singer of Stiff Little Fingers, Jake Burns, to sum it all up :

“Well it’s lasted for so long now
And so many have died
It’s such a part of my own life
Yet it leaves me mystified
How a people so intelligent
Friendly, kind and brave
Can throw themselves so willingly
Into an open grave.”

Later that evening, we reassembled in the Cathedral Quarter – the area that we were to grow to love – at around 5pm.

We met Gillian, Kev and Rich in “The Dirty Onion” – hugs. We were all together last in Newcastle in January 2020. It seemed so recent but also a lifetime away. From there, to “The Harp” and from there to “The Duke Of York” where we spotted the first of the yellow-clad supporters of Villareal. Daryl, Gary, Pete and Nick briefly dropped in, but exited after – like us – being rather annoyed with how long it was taking to get served. It was even poorer service in “The Morning Star” – a favourite of many – but as I joked with Rich, it was funny how my spirits had been lifted by just a few swigs of lager. We then stood outside a cracking pub – “Bittles Bar” – which reminded me of The Minerva in Hull, Belfast’s answer to The Flatiron in Manhattan. We then ended up at “Franklins Sports Bar” where the drinking continued long into the night. My pal Stephen – originally from Belfast – but living in New Orleans for twenty years called in with his wife Elicia and her parents.

Then the others drifted off and I was the last man standing.

There was a reunion with a few good friends, some Chelsea songs, some flag-waving.

At about 1am we were turfed out and I managed to find my way back to the hotel.

Outside the hotel, there was more chat with a couple of Chelsea lads and I then stumbled next-door to raid the adjacent chicken joint.

At 2am – awake for twenty-four hours – I called it a night.

Unfortunately, the scene that greeted me on Wednesday morning – game day – was of drizzle in the Belfast streets below my room on the sixth floor. In the distance, pinched between some tall buildings, the slopes of Black Mountain could be seen, but they were shrouded in cloud. Parky and Foxy were up before me, but I eventually met Parky in reception at around 11am. We put on rain jackets and ambled off to pick up our match tickets at the Europa Hotel. As every Chelsea fan in Belfast 2021 now knows, it is the world’s most bombed hotel (43 times according to yer man Kieran).

We inevitably bumped into many Chelsea faces in the fifteen minutes that we were at the Europa. Parky and I then sheltered in a restaurant – another fry up for me – and a lovely pub “The Spaniard” before our get-together in “The Harp” at 2pm.

Peroni, laughs, Peroni, banter, Peroni, chat.

We admitted to each other that we were just so relieved that Villareal had reached the final and not Manchester United. Belfast is a United stronghold. The Manchester club has had a certain affiliation with the Catholic community in the past – though not as strong as Celtic – and so the thought of United and Chelsea with its links to Rangers and, to a lesser degree Linfield, drinking in the same compact city centre drew gasps from us all.

As the afternoon grew older, we looked on as little groups of Villareal fans – their vivid yellow so prominent – stopped for photos beneath the neon signs opposite. It certainly was a photogenic hotspot. We then joked that it was the same fans on some sort of sponsored walk and that when we reached the stadium there would only be fifty inside.

After four hours or so of sublime Chelsea chat, we split up. Sadly, Gillian and Kevin were unlucky to get tickets in the UEFA ballot. Foxy and Rich had been luckier. But so much for heading off to the stadium at 6pm. We eventually left at around 6.30pm. It took us a few nervous minutes to get hold of a cab. But the cabbie was only able to take Rich, Parky and little old me as far as Sandy Row, which looked like a scene from the apocalypse with debris and broken glass littering the street. A good time had certainly been had by all. A police car blocked the road south.

So, out into the now seriously warm evening sun. We embarked on a thirty-minute walk down to Windsor Park which sits a mile or so to the south of the city centre. I enjoyed this. There was a certain old-time feel to it all, walking past decidedly working class terraced houses, the crowd being drawn to the football stadium as in times of yore.

We turned into Donegall Avenue, under a road bridge, a row of police watching us, yet more echoes of a distant past, and then the security checks. Thankfully, no issues with either the COVID19 passport nor my ticket. More familiar faces. Good people. Plenty of old school Chelsea. But then a silly altercation with a fellow fan who was sat in my seat. This all meant that despite waking up at around 10am, and the kick-off some ten hours away, I was only in position for the kick-off at 7.55pm.

Proper Chelsea.

I was behind the eastern goal in row G, but where was Parky? Maybe Chelsea in their infinite wisdom had decided to keep us apart despite me getting our tickets together in the same transaction. Who knows? Answers on a postcard.

Windsor Park holds 18,000 but its limit for this game was 13,000. Chelsea were given 2,000 tickets, Villareal had 1,500. Now I know this club comes from a city with a population of just 50,000 but that split doesn’t seem fair in this day and age. Surely all UEFA Finals should have an even spilt. The side stands – home to the UEFA ballot tickets – were predominantly Chelsea. In the end, it looked like slightly over 1,000 Villareal fans had made the journey. They were residing in half of the western end and in the two tiers of the side stand too. I remember the old Windsor Park. I remember England returning there in 1977 after a spell of Northern Ireland always playing their Home International games away from Belfast during The Troubles. For many years it was a ramshackle stadium, the double tiered north stand being the only modern structure. It has now been totally modernised, with white, blue, light green and dark green seats. It has rather ugly raised executive areas in the main south stand and an even uglier arrangement in – our – eastern end. But it suited UEFA for this game. I remember the Cardiff City stadium hosted Real Madrid and Sevilla in 2014.

So, I predictably missed all of the pre-game pageantry.

I had to quickly run through the team.

Mendy

Rudiger – Zouma – Chalobah

Hudson-Odoi – Kante – Kovacic – Alonso

Havertz – Werner – Ziyech

Villareal’s team included Capoue, ex-Tottenham, and Moreno, ex-Liverpool.

It seemed like every single one of their fans were wearing yellow.

Bless’em.

It is worth noting that in none of the bars and pubs, in none of the conversations among close friends and distant acquaintances did anyone…not one person…mention a “high press.”

So here we all were. The Chelsea away club transplanted to the National Football Stadium at Windsor Park. A row of Chelsea flags along the unused seats at the front of the east stand. Chelsea flags sporadically placed on balcony walls.

The simple efficiency of one that bore the words “Two Steps Beyond.”

We all knew what it meant.

The game began and Chelsea were immediately on top, and its fans too. The first segment of the game was played out in front of a noisy backdrop and one song dominated.

“Oh Roman do you know what that’s worth?

Kai Havertz is the best on Earth.

The silky German is just what we need.

He won Chelsea the Champions League.”

It was sung loudly and raucously for minutes on end.

Chelsea attacked the colourful Villareal fans in the western end. Behind them, the dull outline of the hills that surround Belfast squeezed in between the steel of the stands. A setting sun behind it all.

When the Spanish fans began to familiarise themselves with the sights of Belfast, perhaps they took solace in the bright yellow of the twin cranes of the Harland & Wolf shipyards. Was yellow the key colour of the moment? There was that rather oddly misaligned yellow piping on the Chelsea shirt and then shorts after all.

After five minutes, an in swinging corner from the slight Hakim Ziyech on our right found the predatory Timo Werner on the far post. He connected late, almost between the legs of his marker, and brought a great instinctive save from Asenjo in the Villareal goal. We were finding players in good wide positions and after a sweeping ball in from that man Havertz, the ball was won back by N’Golo Kante, the captain on the night, who thundered the ball wide.

Where was Parky, though? Couldn’t see him anywhere.

We were well on top. Kante was everywhere. Villareal were kept camped inside their half. On twenty-six minutes, after steady Chelsea pressure, the ball was played by Marcos Alonso out to Havertz on the left. His first time cross was hit low towards Werner, but was picked up by Ziyech behind him. He swept the ball fortuitously into the net, bouncing up and in, as if in slow motion.

Get in.

Chelsea 1 Villareal 0.

The players celebrated over in the opposite corner with the noise booming around Windsor Park.

Not long after, a rare Villareal break enabled players to find space inside our box but Dia was foiled by Edouard Mendy, who did well to block the effort on goal.

A Ziyech cross from the left found Alonso, but his snap shot was clawed out by Asenjo at the near post. Then a Ziyech free-kick caught Villareal out. It was perfectly played, dropping at the far post but the outstretched leg of Kurt Zouma just sent the ball crashing over the bar.

The goal scorer Ziyech went down after a challenge and was replaced by Christian Pulisic.

Right on the half-time whistle, a very good Villareal move enabled the ball to be hooked back towards the far post where Moreno met the ball with a thunderous volley. We gasped as the ball crashed against the bar, and bounced down a foot or so from the line.

Fackinell.

At the start of the second-half, Havertz went close at our end. But then Mendy slipped as he cleared and the ball fell to Moreno. Mendy thankfully redeemed himself, touching the ball onto the base of the far post. But the warning signs had been sounded and Villareal dominated much of the possession in the second half. The Chelsea fans grew nervy and quieter.

Just after the hour, Thomas Tuchel changed the personnel.

Jorginho for Kante.

Mount for Werner.

Christensen for Zouma.

Mendy saved at the near post from Estupinan. On seventy-two minutes, the Yellow Submarine cut through our rather static defence and Gerard Moreno slammed the ball in after a nice ball played back to him by Dia. The Villareal players celebrated in the yellow corner.

It was on the cards. No complaints.

Bollocks.

Right in front of me, in the inside left channel, Alonso received a ball, nestled it on his thigh, turned and volleyed. The ball only troubled the side netting. It was the last chance of the ninety minutes.

We moved rather reluctantly into an extra thirty minutes and I suspected that the extra pints that had been gleefully taken throughout the days drinking in the many city centre pubs may have had an adverse effect on the Chelsea support.

In truth, the extra half an hour provided little thrills. Pulisic stumbled as he prodded a ball towards the Villareal goal and the ball apologetically bounced wide. In the second period, a twist and a shot from Mason Mount inside the box brought another fine save from the Villareal ‘keeper.

Just before the end of the extra thirty minutes, we looked over to the touchline and saw that Kepa was lining up to replace Mendy.

There was a mixed reaction in the Chelsea end. There were moans when we realised that the penalties were to be taken at the Villareal end.

So. The game continued, the night continued. All was dark above Windsor Park now.

All eyes on the penalty takers.

First-up Chelsea. Our support tried to put the fear of God into the Villareal players.

“We know what we are. Champions of Europe. We know what we are.”

Havertz. The hero of Porto. The new hero. An easy save. Bollocks.

Gerard the scorer in normal time. Goal.

Dave. A big penalty. A sweet strike. Goal.

Mandi. Saved not by Mendy, but by Kepa. Get in you bastard.

Alonso. A slip, but in. Goal.

Estupinan. Goal.

Mount. Goal.

Gomez. Goal.

Jorginho. Lots of nerves from us all. Would he hop and go right? No, a hop and left. Goal. Get in.

Raba. Goal.

Sudden death now.

Fackinell.

Pulisic. Goal.

Foyth. Goal.

Rudiger. Nerves again. Goal.

Albiol. My camera was poised. A strike. The Chelsea players blocked my view. I heard a roar. Saved.

GETINYOUBASTARDS.

The players ran towards Kepa in the yellow corner. The submarine was sunk in Titanic’s home city.

I looked for Jonesy, a veteran from Monaco, and we shared a special moment. We had been present at all of the “modern” European Chelsea victories in all those far flung places.

Monaco and Belfast, though; the most unlikely of twinned cities.

There was the usual post-game sequence of the modern age. The rather odd two-stage presentation of the cup. Firstly, the handing over of the cup to Dave and then a walk to the platform to join the waiting team mates.

The hoist, the silver ticker-tape, the screams of delight.

Athens 1971.

Stockholm 1998.

Monaco 1998.

Munich 2012.

Amsterdam 2013.

Baku 2019.

Porto 2021.

Belfast 2021.

Count’em up. Eight. Two of each. I like a bit of symmetry.

It’s lovely that the badge that I grew up with, the lion rampant and the two stars – celebrating 1970 and 1971 – now has an even deeper meaning.

And if the win in Monaco in 1998 was Realy super, the win in Belfast in 2021 was Villarealy super.

OK, enough of the shitty wordplay.

Outside, I met up with Rich. We waited for Parky to emerge from the crowds but soon gave up. We were to eventually find him tagged on to the end of a queue for hot dogs and hamburgers on the Donegall Road.

We walked back, slowly, to the busy area near our hotel, an area that was known as the Golden Mile in the dark days of the ‘seventies, just beyond the high-security of the city centre. A cheap and cheerful pizza, with Chelsea shouts and songs in the distance, and then bed.

It had been a good night.

On the Thursday, there was a visit to the area near the Titanic Museum, a hop-on and hop-off bus tour of the city and even a quick flit over to East Belfast to cram in another football stadium. The Oval is home to Glentoran, Linfield’s main rivals, nestling underneath Samson and Goliath, the twin cranes of the nearby dock area. It is so different to Windsor Park, but I loved it.

It was a perfect end to a magnificent three days in Belfast.

We caught the 10pm flight home and I was able to look down on the lights of the city as we soared high above. The memories will stay a long time.

Thank you Belfast. Thank you Chelsea.

Postcards From Belfast.