Chelsea vs. Shamrock Rovers : 19 December 2024.
This UEFA Conference League campaign had been a long-drawn-out affair this autumn and winter, yet it was coming to a halt at an alarming rate with two final games in just eight days.
However, after the excitement and adventure with the Astana game in Almaty, the home game a week later against Shamrock Rovers was a far more humdrum proposition.
Was I excited about this game? No. Definitely not. Foreign trips aside, the Conference League is not the most loved of competitions. It has the feel of a European Simod Cup.
There was another cup competition that I was involved with on the Tuesday between the Brentford and Shamrock Rovers games. My local club Frome Town visited nearby Bath City in the Somerset Premier Cup and won 2-0, the club’s third win in a row. There is a new-found optimism racing through the club at the moment and long may it continue.
Thursday, and Europe, soon came around. I worked from 6am to 2pm and then drove to London with PD and Parky. For the first time that I can remember, we decided to visit “The Eight Bells” for a midweek game at Stamford Bridge. There had been a few rumours flying around about the visiting supporters from Dublin and elsewhere. This set of fans had been known to sing a few sectarian songs, and there was talk of Chelsea fans with a loyalist viewpoint making a stand. Would things be a bit tasty around the ground as the game approached? I wasn’t sure.
I dropped the lads off near the pub and then headed up to Charleville Road, where I knew that there would be free parking from 5pm. Just a few moments after, I slowly navigated myself around four or five police horses, waiting by the side of the road, and I wondered if the predicted police presence would include police horses to try to keep the peace.
As luck would have it, there was a parking space right outside an Italian restaurant – “AperiPasta” – and I killed two birds with one stone and wolfed down a beautiful slab of lasagne in no time at all.
From there, West Kensington was just a few minutes away. By 6pm, I was getting off the train at Putney Bridge and I was met by around twenty Irish fans, including one chap in full leprechaun get-up.
O’Fackinell.
I was soon in the pub with the usual suspects. We all noted one by-product of the possible threat of trouble before the game; we were served our tipples in plastic glasses. Ugh.
This was a skeleton crew on this night; just Salisbury Steve, Jimmy the Greek, PD, Lord Parky and little old me.
At 7pm, we caught the tube to Fulham Broadway. As I strode along the Fulgham Road, Steve and Parky dipped into “Bruschetta” where they briefly met Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink as a function came to an end. There was a noticeably strong police presence. I spotted a few hoolie-types lurking in the shadows, but things seemed pretty normal.
Inside at around 7.40pm, all present and correct sir!
The usual away following at Stamford Bridge is capped at 3,000 but there were gaps in the left half of The Shed. I think that the police had asked for a slight reduction in tickets going to the Dublin club. I fully expected a few Irish fans to be dotted around the usual home areas of Stamford Bridge. This was, as daft as it seems, the first competitive football match between Chelsea and a team from the Republic of Ireland. If the rumour-mill was to be believed, we were in for a re-enactment of the Battle of the Boyne in SW6 on this particular night.
There were many green and white flags on the balcony between both tiers in The Shed.
Our team?
Jorgensen
Acheampong – Disasi – Veiga – Cucarella
Dewsbury-Hall – Casadei
Madueke – Nkunku – George
Guiu
With the colours of the competition being green, the away fans must have felt at home. The game began at 8pm and there was a quick rendition from the Matthew Harding Lower of a Rangers’ song about “buying a flute” but, after that, I heard nothing of a similar note from both sets of fans.
As we waited to take a corner in front of their fans, toilet rolls bizarrely cascaded down from the top tier. Play was held up for a few minutes.
Thinking : “This lot are from Dublin, not the Bogside, right?”
In the first ten minutes, it was all us.
We probed and probed, but the defending was deep and resolute. A shock, then, on fourteen minutes, as Dylan Watts sent a low cross into our six-yard box from the left, right into the cliched corridor of uncertainty, but Johnny Kenny was unable to turn it in. An offside flag was raised, anyway.
A volley at the back stick from Noni Madueke, but a poor connection.
On twenty-two minutes, a lofted ball into space from Marc Cucarella was aimed at Tyrique George. The Rovers defender Darragh Burns panicked and headed the ball back to their ‘keeper but the pass was awry. A stooping header from Mark Guiu gave us a 1-0 lead and the longest-ever “THTCAUN / COMLD” – full of Dublin accents and choice phrases – was enacted between Alan and me.
“Their defender will be having nightmares about that.”
However, the visitors attacked straight after, and Jorgensen saved magnificently from a Kenny volley. From the corner that followed, Markus Poom smacked the ball home, via a deflection off Cesare Casadei.
The buggers celebrated wildly down below us.
Bollocks.
On thirty-three minutes, in virtually the same location as the first poorly aimed back pass by Burns, we were treated to another, this time via Daniel Cleary. The ball was intercepted by Guiu, and from a tight angle, he steered the ball home.
There was a daisy-cutter from Cesare Casadei from outside the box that the Shamrock ‘keeper Leon Pohls just about saved after sprawling to his left. It almost seemed odd to see a Chelsea player shoot from a long way out. We don’t seem to do that these days, and it doesn’t seem right.
On forty minutes, Cucarella played in Christopher Nkunku, but a great tackle thwarted the striker. However, the ball ran to Keirnan Dewsbury-Hall who calmly slotted home.
In the third minute of added time, Madueke sent over a cross from the right – not unlike the one to Cucarella on Sunday – and I caught the header from Guiu on film. It nestled nicely in the net.
At the break, Chelsea 4 Shamrock Rovers 1.
“Can we declare and bugger off home now, please?”
Enzo Maresca replaced Madueke with Harvey Vale at half-time.
I thought that Nkunku had been relatively quiet in the first-half but he showed a lot more life in the first ten minutes of the second period.
But the pace, not surprisingly, then dropped and the game seemed like a training game.
On fifty-eight minutes, Dewsbury-Hall played square to Nkunku who pushed the ball forward to Cucarella. He took a touch to his right – to his right, I repeat – and I snapped my shutter as he slotted the ball past the Shamrock ‘keeper. I captured his slide into the far corner. Job well and truly done.
On fifty-nine minutes, two more changes.
Harrison Murray-Campbell, a debutant, replaced Axel Disasi.
Joao Felix replaced Guiu, lots of applause.
Felix screwed a shot wide and there were a few more half-chances, but the evening’s entertainment was done, although the stadium honoured the final scorer with a rollicking good rendition of “his” song.
“He eats Paella. He drinks Estrella. His hair’s fuckin’ massive.”
This man is truly loved.
Redemption is a magical thing.
George was a bit disappointing – the phrase “flattering to deceive” seems appropriate – and the game petered out. There was time for one final change on eighty-three minutes with Dewsbury-Hall replaced by Sam Rak-Sakyi.
At the end of this odd autumnal tour of Europe – and Asia – Chelsea finished top of the Conference League table; first out of thirty-two teams, played six, won six, with twenty-six goals scored, and four points clear.
Can we have the trophy now please?
