Tales From Some Kind Of Madness

Posted on January 6, 2026 by Chris Axon

Manchester City vs. Chelsea : 4 January 2026.

So much to write, so little time. Let’s get going.

I was just finishing off the blog of the Bournemouth game when I heard that Enzo Maresca was to leave Chelsea Football Club.

It came as no shock to me.

In fact, I summed it all up to a few friends by saying that I was not surprised that I was not surprised.

Over the years, with increasing regularity over the last fifteen years, Chelsea managers do not last too long; even ridiculously successful ones such as Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti and Antonio Conte.

My thoughts about Maresca?

I had hardly heard of him when it was rumoured that we were heavily linked to him. I was “Maresca neutral” for most of his spell at Chelsea. These pages have hardly been a litany of praise, but there were moments when he seemed to be steering us in the correct position. I do remember one moment quite clearly though; over in New Jersey on that Sunday in July, with us holding a sparking new trophy, and with Maresca bathing in the glory, I did look at the smiles on the manager’s face and think to myself –

“I suppose I am going to have to start liking you now.”

But I was never a massive fan, though nor was I a heavy critic.

My relationship with the man was all rather tepid. I found it odd that – for an Italian – he seemed quite dull.

As the weekend approached, I had to get my head around the fact that there would be no Guardiola and Maresca battle at the Etihad Stadium on the Sunday. To say that I was not relishing the trip would be a fair summation.

But first, Frome Town were to play local rivals Westbury United on the Saturday. This game had certainly caught the imagination of the local populace. The two towns are a mere eight miles apart and the projected gated was between 1,000 and 1,500, a fantastic figure for our level. For me, the real bonus was that my friend Aleksey – from Houston in Texas – would be driving down from London and the dramas of SW6 to stay two nights in Frome to catch the game before then heading north to Manchester.

I met up with Aleksey along with my oldest Chelsea mate Glenn – we met in 1977, our first game together came in 1983 – at “The George Hotel” on the Friday night. We then visited “The Sun “ and “The Blue Boar” and thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. We spoke of Maresca – a little – and of Chelsea – a little more – and Frome Town – a lot more – and planned the details of the weekend. Alas, Glenn was unable to see the Frome game but would be joining us for the northern attraction later that weekend.

Alex and I were to meet at midday on the Saturday, and I awoke to see a sunny day but with cold temperatures. I was slightly concerned that there would be a pitch inspection at 11.15am.

At 11.45am, I was mortified to see that the game had been postponed due to one section of the pitch, under the shadow of a tall stand (and ironically with solar panels on its roof), that was rock hard.

What a horrible shame. I was desolate. And I had to conjure up a “Plan B” for the day. I collected Aleksey, who was very pragmatic about things, and soon decided to take advantage of the stunning winter sun by going on what I called “The No Bloody Frome Town Game Pub Crawl.”

Over five hours we hit five pubs in the surrounding area of the town.

“The George” at Norton St. Phillip, a pub which dates from 1390.

“The Bell” at Buckland Dinham, a village where my maternal grandmother lived.

“The George” in Nunney, a village close to my home.

“The White Hart” in Trudoxhill, a village where I often enjoy a Sunday roast.

“The Woolpack” in Beckington, a village where The Smiths recorded their last album in 1987.

We finished it all off with a spicy curry.

Sunday morning arrived, and I collected PD and Glenn in Frome at 10am, then Parky in Holt? Where was Aleksey? He was already en route to Manchester, keen to drop his hire-car off and book in at his hotel before meeting us at 2pm at a pre-planned pub, his eighth of the weekend.

We stopped at Strensham for a drink and snacks and I decided to post this on “Facebook.”

“I can safely say that of the 1,525 or so Chelsea games I have seen so far, I have never felt less excited than I do today.

I guess it’s some kind of madness that propels me to games like this.”

Was I being over-dramatic?

No.

My reasons were many.

The Etihad is my least favourite away venue. We rarely get anything from our visits. The City fans, who I didn’t use to mind, have become pains, especially those who stand in the area next to the away supporters, and I always seem to be close to them.

City are such a well-oiled team, and after us losing our manager a few days before the game, I was full of nightmarish thoughts about a proper drubbing.

One name; Erling Haaland.

Fackinell.

The kick-off time on this winter’s Sunday was not 4pm, not 4.30pm, not 5pm, but bloody 5.30pm. What a joke. If and when I eventually decide to leave this level of football and take my support elsewhere, I will look back on all of the myriad reasons that combined to make me take the ultimate decision, and “Sunday 5.30pm kick offs up north” will be a major building block towards it.

There was snow forecast during the day. My mate Tommie in North Wales informed me that snow had fallen over night and more was on its way. Additionally, there were rumours of quote-unquote “severe snowstorms” to hit the south-west in the evening.

So, there would be a risk of my projected finish time of 1am being slid – pardon the pun – back a few hours.

I had to get to work the next day for 9am, so I would be sleep-deficient, and my car was in for a service too, so God help us if the snowy roads meant that I would not be able to cover the last few miles along country roads.

And let me re-emphasise; we had just lost our manager.

Ugh.

Is it any wonder I felt so little excitement?

There was snow on the peaks of the Malvern Hills to our west, and as we neared Birmingham, we drove through a little light dusting of snow.

At 2pm, dead on target, I reached “The Kilton Inn”, an old favourite, near Tatton Park, just a few miles from the M6. This pub acted as a base camp for many of our trips to Manchester and the north-west from around 2004 to 2009, and it is, memorably, where Glenn and I, along with Frank – RIP – stopped for a pre-match meal on the way to Bolton in April 2005. On that particular day (one day, I will tell the story in full ) I had popped into Frome to buy a copy of the Comic Relief single “Is This The Way To Amarillo” to take to Bolton.

Why?

Peter Kay was heavily involved, and we were all massive fans of “Phoenix Nights” that was based in Bolton. I surmised that should we win the league that day, it would be the perfect musical accompaniment. Of course we won, what a magical day, and Glenn played it non-stop on the magnificent drive home.

“Claude Makelele waits for me…”

Back to 2026. Glenn and I wolfed down a roast beef special and we stayed until 3.30pm. Just before we left, I asked Aleksey to take a photo of us twenty-one years on, in roughly the same spot.

Ah, the passage of time.

And yes, that’s the CD in my hand.

There were now five in my car, and I drove through Manchester – very close to the location of City’s old stadium in Moss Side – and I dropped PD, Glenn and Parky outside the away end at around 4.15pm. I drove down the Ashton New Road with Aleksey, parking up at my usual place. Outside, the weather was bitter. The cold wind stung my skin. Good God, this could be an horrific day.

I took a few photos of the outside, including a new Sergio Aguero statue, then through the surprisingly easy security checks, and in.

We were all spilt up. Aleksey and Glenn were in the lower level, while Parky came down from his allotted seat in row 30 to join me in row 5 of the upper level, thankfully ten seats away from the locals.

The stadium filled slowly as the night fell.

Thankfully, I was warmer in the stadium than outside it.

A glance at the team that interim coach Calum McFarlane chose revealed no Sanchez, nor Fofana, which worried me.

Jorgensen

Acheampong – Chalobah – Badiashile – Gusto

James – Fernandez

Estevao – Palmer – Neto

Joao Pedro

We eschewed our away kits and chose royal blue. I approved.

The minutes ticked by.

My friend David, a photographer, who I met at Goodison Park a few years back had messaged me to say that he was at the game and was positioned just in front of the away fans. Glenn was in the front row so I wondered if he could get a candid photo of my mate at some stage.

The teams appeared, and I was happy with our support both in terms of number and noise. Despite the nonsensical kick-off time, hardly any seats were left unused.

“COME ON CHELSEA – COME ON CHELSEA.”

Whisper it, but I had made a pact with the footballing Gods on the way up to Manchester that I’d take a 0-3 defeat. PD had predicted “a cricket score” and others, including Nick and Allie behind me had made a pact at 0-3 too. The 0-6 in 2019 still haunts me.

Just before kick-off, the lights dimmed. In a very moving moment, we remembered former players, officials, personalities and fans linked to both clubs who had passed away in 2025.

Well done City.

Marvin Hinton and Joey Jones were among the five Chelsea folk, while Tony Book, Denis Law, Wyn Davies and the boxer Ricky Hatton were among the Manchester City brethren.

I also spotted a Ricky Hatton banner to my right; surely the only banner in a UK stadium that depicts a non-footballing sportsman. He was well loved in Manchester.

The game began.

We started reasonably well and dominated the first five and maybe ten minutes. We nibbled at half-chances inside the City final third but did not create too much. A corner was punched away by Gianluigi Donnarumma.

The game took a while to get going and I was not happy to spot snow falling, but thankfully it did not amount to anything.

On nineteen minutes, the game crackled to life. There was a half-chance for Estevao after a run by Neto, but his shot was blocked by Josko Gvardiol. Just after, an even better chance fell to Phil Foden but he swept his shot wide.

For the rest of the first half, I saw a Chelsea team withdraw further and further back and I made a note on my phone of a litany of City chances.

27 minutes : Haaland leapt, but missed, the ball whipped past the left-hand corner.

31 minutes : Foden headed over.

35 minutes : Malo Gusto kept close to a City player to inhibit his ability to shoot, and it went over.

37 minutes : a superb save from Jorgensen from a deflected shot from Haaland.

38 minutes : we gave the ball away and Haaland smacked a shot against a post.

For us, there was the occasional break but we were finding it hard to support the runners. Enzo impressed me though, making his presence felt, and putting his foot in when needed.

40 minutes : Rayan Cherki blazed wildly over.

Just after, Benoit Badiashile lost possession, and I thought that as the move continued, there was a moment when he could have swiped the ball away, but he paused, allowing Rudolph Reijnders to smack high, and smack home.

Bollocks.

The home fans, quiet in the main, now sang.

“City, Tearing Cockneys Apart, Again.”

I was trying to convince myself throughout the half that we were in it, but the five or six City chances told a different story.

At the break, McFarlane changed things.

Andrey Santos for Estevao.

This enabled Enzo to move forward while Palmer moved wide. The two full-backs switched over.

On forty-seven minutes, with Chelsea attacking us, Neto had a great run but there was a lacklustre finish. Then, just after a very fine move involving Palmer who passed to Enzo. In turn, he adeptly moved the ball to Neto but his shot was slammed over the bar.

This was better.

We enjoyed more of the ball as the half progressed and the support acknowledged it. Regardless of the result, we were playing much better than I had expected. I felt almost embarrassed by my “0-3” deal.

On fifty-seven minutes, we witnessed a “force of nature” run by Haaland into our box but Badiashile – having an up and down game – blocked him superbly.

At a corner down below us, Reece James demanded more support from the travelling three-thousand and we responded.

On sixty-two minutes, two more substitutions.

Liam Delap for Joao Pedro.

Jorrel Hato for Acheampong.

We witnessed a couple of suicidal passes across our defence including a horrific mis-kick from the ‘keeper.

A City version of “Amarillo” was aired.

“Show me the way to Istanbul.
Rodri scored in the Champions League Final.
We’re Man City and we’ve won the treble.
The greatest team you’ll ever see.
Shalalala lalalala City!! Shalalala lalalala City!!Shalalala lalalala City!!
The greatest team you’ll ever see.”

Shalalala my arse. We had Bolton.

Delap was an immediate thorn in his former team’s side and after seventy-one minutes there was a fine break, and Delap spun but shot at Donnarumma.

A mention here for the City substitute Abdukodir Khusanov from Uzbekistan. For some reason, I really felt for him on his miserable debut against us last season, so far from home, and was pleased he had recovered emotionally.

City attacked us still, but less often.

The minutes ticked.

A City player broke after Santos erred but Hato robbed the ball with a fantastic sliding tackle.

On seventy-seven minutes, Delap ran alongside a City defender, a good old shoulder-to-shoulder sprint, but the City player just had a little too much speed.

A cross from Gusto on the right narrowly avoided two onrushing players in the box.

The City fans yelled : “We’re not really here.”

Actually, I was glad I was, for all my pre-match dread.

With ten minutes remaining, as City sang about United to the point of obsession – go figure – I kept thinking…

“If we get one now…fackinell.”

With five minutes to go, I said to John :

“About now, Kevin de Bruyne usually scores a cracker at the other end against us.”

On eighty-eight minutes, a lovely patient move but Palmer side-footed a shot at the City ‘keeper.

Six minutes of injury time was signalled.

“COME ON CHELS.”

One minute in, Gusto ran into the box but just fell, his legs weak. I felt for him.

Four minutes in, Gusto broke on the right. The away end lurched forward, as one. I snapped – with my pub camera – just as the cross left his foot. It was a bloody magnificent cross, low and right across the six-yard box. I could hardly believe that Enzo was unmarked at the back stick. I snapped again.

He lunged at the ball, mis-hit it, kicked it again, the ‘keeper blocked, but the rebound was tucked home.

EUPHORIA.

EMOTION.

ECSTASY.

I was giddy with excitement.

We live for these moments.

I snapped, again, everything a blur down below me. I saw Enzo jump into the crowd. I envisaged Glenn being swamped by bodies, maybe David too.

Unreal.

We had done it.

Bloody Fucking Nora.

I know I had seen hundreds of Chelsea draws and the club has drawn many more but on ninety-four minutes at the horrible Etihad, this seemed the most important 1-1 ever.

The game ended and I gave random people hugs, saying to a few “thanks for staying” as I noticed quite a few Chelsea fans left at 0-1.

Why?

The players came over to celebrate. Enzo was joyous. Reece propelled Calum to receive the applause he so deserved. What a turnaround. Both of these players, plus Gusto and Chalobah, had been magnificent.

Top marks!

Outside, we met up and we managed a team photo.

We slowly walked back to the car. We dipped into a “Kebabbie” with PD and Glenn munching a ginormous lamb kebab while Parky and I chomped a piping hot pizza.

Life was good.

We hit some snow on the M6, but I kept going.

In the last hour, I played “Music Complete”, New Order’s last album from 2015.

It seemed the perfect way to end this craziest of days.

With song titles including “Restless”, “Plastic”, “People On The High Line” and “The Game” it seemed even more appropriate.

Football Complete.

I reached home at 1am.

Oh, and David captured Glenn with Enzo and I think you will agree it’s a magnificent photo.

See you at Fulham.

David’s Photographs :

https://www.rexfeatures.com/livefeed/2026/01/04/manchester_city_v_chelsea?filter=S&folder=Premier%20League%202025-26

THE KILTON INN

THE ETIHAD

TEAM CHELSEA

APRIL 2005 AND JANUARY 2026

WE ARE CHELSEA

Tales From The Last Game Of 2025

Posted on January 1, 2026 by Chris Axon

Chelsea vs. Bournemouth : 30 December 2025.

subtitled : “chaos theory.”

After the collapse against Aston Villa, we were heading back to Stamford Bridge for the second home league game in four days. This time, the visitors were Bournemouth, or AFC Bournemouth to give them their full, rather pretentious, title.

What version of Chelsea would show up for this game? I am not sure anyone was sure.

Unfortunately, Lord Parsnips – to give him his festive title – was unable to make it, so after picking up PD and Glenn at 11am in Frome, I sped off towards London via our old route which included a short-cut across Salisbury Plain from the A36 to the A303.

Blue skies above, a clear road ahead, a glorious day. We were on the road.

“Jack Kerouac” as I used to say in the first few years of these match reports.

I enjoy coming in on this “southern route” and for those not familiar with this drive to London, it takes me right past Stonehenge – the sun was hitting those stone slabs perfectly as we drove past – and then up towards London’s well-heeled South-Western suburbs and we came in past Twickenham Stadium, a smattering of other rugby stadia, Richmond-upon-Thames, then Barnes – past the Marc Bolan memorial site – and over Putney Bridge.

I know it’s a hackneyed cliché that the days between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day form a weird zone of confusion, but I was a victim of this peculiar time of the year as I drove towards London.

“Wait a minute. It’s a Tuesday. Free parking starts from 5pm on weekdays. Bollocks. I’ll have to pay for a few hours of parking.”

Not to worry. I hoped it wouldn’t be too much.

The “southern route” is considerably quicker than the “northern route” and I dropped Ebeneezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim off outside “The Temperance” in deepest Fulham bang on 1.30pm. They then made the brief walk towards “The Eight Bells” to set up a base camp for the afternoon.

Meanwhile, I – Bob Cratchit – set off through Fulham to find a parking space and ended up just off Rylston Road. The parking was £4 per half-hour…

I then wandered down towards Stamford Bridge and took a few photographs of the area. I probably know this part of Fulham just as well as my hometown, and of course there are many memories from these streets of SW6. I seemed rather obsessed with incorporating the moon in as many photos as possible. The time was only around 4pm. Maybe I was surprised to see it so clear, so early in the evening.

There was a bite to eat on The North End Road, then a quick visit to Stamford Bridge again, and a few photos. As I walked towards the West Stand forecourt, I heard a young lad shout out.

“There’s no Cucurella.”

Had the team news been announced already? It was only three o’clock. The quick thought about our esteemed left-back missing the match saddened me.

I then heard “Bob The T-Shirt” reply.

“Get him out!”

And I realised that this brief conversation concerned scarves on Bob’s matchday stall and not the starting eleven.

At 3.30pm, I walked into “The Eight Bells” and walked up to the chaps.

“Right, where were we?”

It seemed only five minutes ago that we had all been crowded around the same table pre-Villa. Just behind me, and undoubtedly on the same tube train, was Aleksey from Houston – but originally Moscow – and he quickly joined in. Dave from Northampton dropped in for a pint too; a mate from 1983/84. It’s fantastic to think we met as twenty-year-olds and now we are in our ‘sixties but still in contact.

Salisbury Steve was with his son Leigh, two other Steves were in attendance, as was Jimmy The Greek.

Ten of us in total. Bob Cratchit even inched into one of the photos.

Aleksey has been bitten hard with the Chelsea bug over the years but is also one of a growing band of mates from the US who have become interested in the non-league scene in the United Kingdom. Suffice to say, in addition to this Bournemouth game, plus aways at Manchester City and across the park at Craven Cottage, Aleksey is heading down to the West Country for two nights so that he can watch the Frome Town vs. Westbury United match at the weekend.

A feisty local derby on a Saturday at three o’clock, with a few drinks before and after, and a gate of more than one thousand. Fantastic.

It’s the future.

Dear reader : I can’t deny it. I have been looking forward to this Frome game more than any other match over the Christmas period. More so than Villa at home, more so than Bournemouth at home, and certainly more so than City away. I am bloody dreading that last one.

Aleksey was down in the West Country for our game with Winchester City last season. And I know he is relishing Saturday’s game.

Frome’s “Chelsea” visitors from the US to Badgers Hill now stands at five.

Bob – California.

Josh – Minnesota.

Courtney – Illinois.

Phil – Iowa.

Aleksey – Texas.

Only another forty-five states to go. Who is next?

Aleksey seemed to be on a mission to try every draught beer available – from a dark porter to a crisp light cider – but Bob Cratchit was on the Diet Cokes. Tiny Tim chatted to Aleksey about our trip to New York in the summer, while the others got temporarily sidetracked into talking about the current mess at the club. For a few moments, it all got a bit heavy and depressing.

On Saturday, my mate Clive had to leave early against Villa as he got the call that his dog, Norm, had taken a turn for the worst. He wasn’t at this game. In fact, Tiny Tim had his ticket.

I messaged Clive to find out how Norm was doing.

“Definitely on the mend. He’s back shagging my leg. Are you having a good time?”

I replied.

“Not as good as you.”

There’s always a good soundtrack to our drinking and our chit-chat and laughter in “The Eight Bells” and I liked it that “A Town Called Malice” was played not once but twice. I reminded Aleksey that Frome will come out to this song against Westbury.

We bellowed along.

“A whole street’s belief in Sunday’s roast beef.
Gets dashed against the co-op.
To either cut down on beer or the kids’ new gear.
It’s a big decision in a town called Malice.”

We set off for Stamford Bridge, and there was the usual group selfie from Jimmy, then a group photo of us all, taken by a random stranger, and I include it here.

In a quiet moment, Jimmy said he fancied coming down to see a Frome Town match too.

“You might get a game, mate.”

I was in at 7pm.

I spoke to a few people around me.

“Who knows what we’ll do today. You never know, we might turn it round. Today might be the day that we can…be shite in both halves.”

Oh that gallows humour.

The team?

Well, Bob’s helper was indeed right; no Cucurella.

We lined up as below –

Robert Sanchez

Josh Acheampong – Trevoh Chalobah – Wesley Fofana – Malo Gusto

Moises Caicedo – Enzo Fernandez

Estevao Willian – Cole Palmer – Alejandro Garnacho

Liam Delap

Oh, those constant defensive changes.

I didn’t like it that we attacked the Matthew Harding Stand as the game began. I liked it that we clapped Djordje Petrovic, though.

Inside the first minute, a rampaging run by Liam Delap and he forced a corner, but Estevao’s floater amounted to nothing.

Over in the far corner, the folk from Pokesdown, Christchurch, Poole, Mudeford, Boscombe, Southbourne, Hamworthy, Parkstone and Ferndown rustled up a chant.

“AFCB – Red And Black Army.”

To be fair, three thousand of their fans at an away game is a mighty fine figure when you consider they only have 9,000 home fans each game at the Vitality. Their expansion plans are ongoing. I wonder what figure the Poole and Bournemouth conurbation could reliably support. Maybe 25,000? Perhaps 20,000.

We countered with a half-hearted “CAM ON CHOWLSEA.”

With five minutes gone, the away team had already created a couple of chances. On six minutes, a long throw-in from in front of the West Stand. The ball was flicked on by a Bournemouth player despite three – yes three – Chelsea defenders jumping with him. David Brooks headed the ball at Sanchez, whose reflex save was impressive, but Brooks then slotted home the rebound from close range.

Here we bloody go again.

Wait.

VAR…zzz…a wait…zzz…ho hum…the goal stood.

From the away end.

“How shit must you be? We’re winning away.”

On ten minutes, the ball was pushed out to Estevao who wriggled past the left-back and came inside. He ran on confidently. Inside the box, after a challenge by Antoine Semenyo, he fell.

VAR…zzz…a wait…zzz…ho hum…zzz…oh boy…I didn’t hear what the referee Sam Barrot said, but of course by then we knew it was a penalty.

I still haven’t remotely cheered a VAR decision that has gone our way, since it has vastly helped to rot football’s soul.

Cole Palmer slotted the ball in at the corner.

No celebrations from him, nor his teammates.

Good – I liked that.

“We have a job to do.”

A quarter of an hour had passed.

Soon after, a mistake by young Josh Acheampong let in the away team who passed around our defenders and played in Brooks. I admired a fantastic “strong wrists” parry from Robert Sanchez. He is becoming a noticeably excellent shot-stopper, especially from close-in.

Then, Delap forced his way past his marker, but his low cross was just not close enough to Alejandro Garnacho’s lunge.

Garnacho, soon after, then took a heavy touch and a good chance went begging.

On twenty-three minutes, I loved the way Young Josh won the ball on our right. Moises Caicedo to Enzo to Garnacho. He played the ball back to Enzo, who feinted a touch to create space, then shot high into the net.

YES!

What a bloody fantastic strike.

A slide from the scorer.

Snap, snap, snap.

I hoped that my pub camera was up to the task.

The Matthew Harding decided to sing.

“How shit must you be? We’re winning at home.”

I am all for gallows humour, but I was not a fan of this. I turned around to see if Lee – we share basic Chelsea fundamentals – was as annoyed as me.

He was.

PD chirped “this game could be 4-4 or 5-5.”

Well, the goals continued. On twenty-seven minutes, a throw-in from Semenyo in front of the East Lower was aimed at the near post. Trevoh Chalobah rose but got the angles and his timing wrong and only helped the Bournemouth cause by heading the ball fortuitously on for Justin Kluivert to stab the ball home.

If only we had deployed a player to stand on the rear post.

Basics.

It was 2-2 with not half-an-hour played; so, was this a fine game played with players on form or a low-quality match with defensive lapses and the inevitable goals to boot?

I think we all know.

On thirty minutes, Malo Gusto booted wildly over. Just after, a good cross from them but Sanchez got something on it at the near post. On thirty-five minutes, a high Garnacho cross to Estevao, of all people, on the far post but the headed effort bounced wide.

Seven minutes of injury / VAR time, but that was that.

What a chaotic half of football.

As for the second-half, God only knew.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Enzo Maresca tweaked things.

Reece James for Acheampong.

Pedro Neto for Garnacho.

Soon into the half, James headed a pass – for that’s what it was – towards Cole who set up Estevao but his shot was blocked.

We witnessed a finely timed and finely executed tackle by Wesley Fofana. Such is our lack of defensive prowess these days that this simple act now seems like it needs to be heralded.

Gusto headed a cross out for a corner, but…

VAR…zzz…a wait…zzz…ho hum…no handball.

On fifty-four minutes, Delap headed over at the end of a decent break.

The noise in the stadium was – of course – poor, but Stamford Bridge reverberated with boos when Palmer was replaced by Joao Pedro. Cole began a long walk around the pitch to the bench, while on the pitch there was a low shot from Estevao that Petrovic tipped around the post for a corner.

It made me chuckle when the subbed Palmer rescued the match ball and placed it on the corner spot and motioned to look for a player.

For all the substitutions, it wasn’t working and we struggled to create too much. Pedro Neto was frustrating me with his need to take an extra touch, while I would have preferred for Delap to be a central target rather than making runs to the near post.

On seventy minutes, Estevao snaked into the box with an excellent dribble, but his effort only resulted in a corner. Our corners were predictably poor, and I expected more quality from Reece on the left and Neto on the right.

Sigh.

On seventy-six minutes, Enzo lashed over.

On eighty-two minutes, Joao Pedro tried an optimistic (ie: bloody stupid) lob from inside his own half.

Oh boy.

His deflected shot then went off for a corner.

Amazingly, Bournemouth should have won it in the first minute of the four that were added on for injuries / VAR. A cross from the left down below us from Adrien Truffert, a first-time touch at the far post by Armine Adli and the ball was played back to Enes Unal. Thankfully his first-time volley from eighteen yards flew over the bar.

Phew.

Just after, with just two minutes remaining, Jamie Gittens replaced Estevao and we all wondered why, oh why?

This was another meek performance from us, and it’s obvious that many of the rank-and-file are losing patience with this current regime.

At least the hot dog with onions at Fulham Broadway was bang on.

THE MOON AND THE MEMORIES

MY TEAM

CHAOS THEORY

Tales From A Happy Hunting Ground

Posted on December 7, 2025 by Chris Axon

Burnley vs. Chelsea : 22 November 2025.

With the latest, miserable, International Break behind us, we were now into a heavy period of club football.

I was up early on the Saturday for the first of these encounters. My alarm sounded at 4.45am, and at 6am on the dot I collected PD from his house in Frome. It was a milder morning that I had predicted after a couple of very cold days in Somerset, but there was drizzle in the air as I headed north. On the way to collecting Lord Parky in Holt, I called in at Melksham to pick up Jason, who is originally from that town but has been living in the delightful seaside resort of Swanage in Dorset for around twenty-five years. Jason’s normal lift is with a chap from Swindon, but he was not going to the wilds of Lancashire on this occasion. Jason was an honourable Chuckle Brother and sat alongside Parky in the rear seats.

The rain was steady but not too unforgiving. We stopped at Strensham Services for a McDonald’s breakfast at around 8am and the place was swarming with Plymouth Argyle supporters on their way to the delights of Burslem and Port Vale. There was a smattering of Liverpool fans dotted around too, on their way to – hopefully – oblivion.

The journey north was punctuated by the chatter of past Chelsea memories. I loved how Jason – who we have only really known for around five or six years – knew people in the Chelsea circle that we knew too. I really enjoyed hearing how Jason and PD were, apparently, in the same minibus that took a group of local Chelsea supporters to the Full Members Cup Final at Wembley in 1986. PD would have been twenty-three, Jason a mere lad of sixteen or so.

There was talk of Chelsea players from our distant past and our recent past. During the week, I had checked in on a blog of mine from 2022/23 – the away game at Forest – and I was absolutely gobsmacked to read of a player called Denis Zakaria, who started in that game. I was confused because I had absolutely no recollection of him. He played a few games for us and even scored the winner on his debut at home to Dinamo Zagreb, a game I witnessed too. I told this story to my three passengers, and I was somewhat relieved to hear that they had no recollection of him either.

And yet, later in the journey, I was able to answer Jason’s teaser about Nick Crittenden who made only two substitute appearances way back in 1997.

Funny game, football.

There was a quick stop at Knutsford Services and by now the rain had virtually stopped.

There was a brief mention of Scott Parker, the Burnley manager, and how he never really felt like a proper Chelsea player during his brief spell with us from 2004 to 2005.

My Sat Nav took me over the River Mersey and then east towards Manchester on the M62, before cutting off and heading north around the M60 orbital and up past Bury on the M66.

Eventually, we made it to the outskirts of Burnley, the town shrouded in fog, with the Pennines unable to be spotted in the distance. I have waxed lyrical on many occasions before about how a trip to Burnley often seems like travelling back in time. I glanced over at row upon row of terraced houses and was warmed by the fact that the town still seemed untouched, forever in the nineteenth century. I love towns with history. Burnley Football Club was formed in 1882 at a time when towns grew to become industrial centres and football clubs started springing up to represent their local populations.

It is a particularly favourite away game for me.

My mother stayed in Burnley with a friend of hers in the immediate post-war years after meeting in The Women’s Land Army; I always wonder if Mum stayed near Turf Moor.

I attended Ian Britton’s funeral here in 2016, at the local crematorium, with the wake at the football club after; we all loved Ian Britton.

It always resonates when I drive into the town.

All the car parking spaces were full in the two usual spots, so I took advantage of PD’s Blue Badge to park on some double yellow lines in the centre of the town near the War Memorial and the bus station. I was parked on the quintessentially Northern sounding Grimshaw Street.

It seemed wholly appropriate.

It was 11.30am.

The familiar walk to Turf Moor – not so cold, thank heavens – took us under the aqueduct on Yorkshire Street, and then on to Harry Potts Way.

While the other three veered off to gain access to the away end via a new entrance – the away fans are now located in the northern half of the Fishwick Stand – I wanted to take a few photos of the area around the stadium to add a little variation to my spread of photos from the day. There are four pubs on this stretch of the road – all home only – and the locals were popping in and out of them as I walked past the modernised frontage – painted a cool black – of the ancient single-tiered Bob Lord Stand.

I stopped near a pub called the Park View and spotted a long line of people queuing up along Higgin Street to purchase pies, chips and sandwiches from the front window of a house. I could not resist a photo of this match day scene.

With Goodison Park now gone, this might well be one of the last remaining venues in the top division – God, I hate how it has been shortened to “The Prem” over the last five years – where you get this classic juxtaposition of stadium, pubs, chippies, and terraced houses.

I retraced my steps, the clock-ticking, and turned right and right again and accessed the stadium grounds via a tarmacked walkway past the Cricket Club where away fans are ushered before games.

There was an almighty queue to get in, and time was running out. How could I leave my house at 5.50am and still be outside the ground at 12.15pm? Eventually I made it through the turnstiles, but the info on my ticket – Block 6 – bore no relevance to where I needed to aim for. There was a mass of people ahead of me and as I gingerly stepped up some surprisingly steep, but dangerously narrow, steps I saw the LED lights of the pre-game razzamatazz reflected on the stairwell walls.

Eventually, I was in, just as the teams broke from the pre-match line up.

It’s a good job that I work in logistics, eh?

I settled in alongside John in row H, and who should be right behind me but my dear friend Deano from Silverdale, who was lucky with a last-minute ticket.

Unfortunately, my very good friend Gary was unable to join us on this occasion.

His dear father had passed away recently, and so Gary was with his mother, as they both tried to come to terms with the sadness of loss. I met his Dad at a Chelsea game a few years back, and it is a nice memory. I texted Gary to let him know he was missed.

Rest In Peace Ron Phillips.

I took a few quick photos with my pub camera – SLRs are “camera non grata” at Turf Moor – just before the kick-off and steadied myself for my eighth game at Turf Moor.

We have a ridiculously good – no, exemplary – record at this stadium.

Since our last defeat here in 1983 – 0-3, a hideous result, I was convinced it would see us relegated to the old Third Division – we had played nine times, winning eight and drawing once. The draw was that 1-1 game in February 2017 when the weather was as dreadful as I can ever remember at a game in the UK. We had to endure horizontal rain, sleet, snow, bitter temperatures and a tear-inducing blustery wind. I have been colder at a couple of games – Stoke City vs. Chelsea and York City vs. Swindon Town – but this experience was unyielding in its nastiness. On the day, I think we forgave Antonio Conte’s players and were just happy that nothing important had snapped off our poor bodies.

The temperature on this day in 2025 was positively balmy by comparison.

Right, I needed to focus on our team. I tried to piece it all together.

Sanchez

James – Chalobah – Tosin – Cucurella

Santos – Fernandez

Neto – Joao Pedro – Gittens

Delap

Burnley lined up with the ex-Chelsea midfielder Lesley Ugochukwu in the starting line-up, a Chuckle Brother that didn’t last long. On the bench was another ex-Blue; Armando Broja.

For a few moments, every spare inch of possible space within the stadium flashed LED lighting, urging support of the home team. The mundane grey interior of this old stadium metamorphosed into Times Square. It was quite an ordeal on the senses.

Phew,

Burnley in claret / white / blue.

Chelsea in white / green / white.

The game began.

It felt a little odd being in the left-hand part of the away stand, although I was central. I had to keep reminding myself that the old changing rooms were once tucked away in the bowels of this stand.

Burnley, attacking our end, began the livelier of the two teams and our former player Ugochukwu was a lively handful as he broke in from their right. On six minutes, Trevoh Chalobah covered some ground to block and effort on goal and he screamed his delight at its success. We all like to see that passion.

At the other end, Liam Delap screwed a shot high and wide.

In front of us, there followed two more resolute blocks of shots from Andrey Santos and Tosin Adaraabioyo.

On nineteen minutes, Sanchez was able to block a shot that was walloped straight at him.

The game continued, waiting to ignite after the home team’s bright opening had faded. On twenty-eight minutes, a frustrated “CAM ON CHELSEA” rang out from the away end.

Just after, a roller from Trevoh Chalobah didn’t test the Burnley ‘keeper.

It was all so slow and so mundane.

I muttered to the blokes behind me “fans from thirty years ago would be booing this.”

Then, on thirty-eight minutes, the best move of the match. A break from the always effervescent Marc Cucuralla on the left who pushed the ball on to Jamie Gittens. From out wide, a deep cross towards the far post and a Chelsea player rose to head it back across the goal and into the net. We saw Pedro Neto reel away to celebrate.

GET IN.

The highlight of the rest of the half was the lovely reaction by Estevao Willian to our chanting of his name. His smile lit up the dull Lancashire afternoon.

At half-time, I turned to talk to Deano, and I was reminded that he is off to Sri Lanka with his wife in December. On their last visit, Deano encountered great discomfort caused by a dislodged retina in one eye. During that trip, he had to wear a patch on his eye. We spent a few moments debating whether he should cover the other eye on the next trip, to maximise his experience, and to make sure that if they had toured the island in a clockwise direction the last time, he would have to ensure he did the same in December, or he would just end up seeing the same things twice.

Overhead, the sun threatened to appear.

At half-time, Enzo Maresca replaced Reece James with Benoit Badiashile, with Chalobah moving to right-back.

It’s always a worry when Badiashile enters the fray. I always think it might take him forty-five minutes to warm up.

However, we enjoyed a good first ten minutes of the second period.

A wild shot from the frustrated, and frustrating, Joao Pedro went wide.

Gittens continued to annoy fans too, finding it difficult to link up.

“Still, it’s his first season. Give him time.”

On sixty-seven minutes, Malo Gusto replaced Delap, and Joao Pedro took a step forward.

On sixty-eight minutes, the Burnley striker Zian Flemming adeptly chested the ball down but volleyed over.

“CAM ON CHOWLSEA – CAM ON CHOWLSEA.”

A rasper from Neto hit the base of the post after Martin Dubravka got the slightest of touches.

A shot from Gusto was scooped over by Dubravka.

It became slightly nervy.

Would one goal suffice?

Marc Guiui then replaced Joao Pedro.

Was this Maresca being too meddlesome? I suspected it.

Two abject pieces of Robert “Spin The Wheel” Sanchez had us all swearing in unison, but the danger thankfully passed.

However, I was surely not the only one who expected a late Burnley equaliser.

With the clock ticking, we had one more move left.

On eighty-eight minutes, we moved the ball through the length of the pitch and Neto advanced with speed to my left. He expertly played the ball into space for Guiu, who continued the movement towards the goal-line. He had the presence of mind to spot Enzo, in prime Frank Lampard space, who then smashed the ball in.

GET IN.

The game was won.

Phew.

The players loitered in front of us for a while and it was lovely to see so many smiles.

We met up outside and walked back towards the main road via the new walkway.

I had a little giggle to myself as I realised that I had been excited about pacing around a new part of Turf Moor. What, I wondered, would I be bloody like at Bramley Moore Dock in March?

On the way back to civilisation, the three of us stopped off for an all you-can-eat Chinese buffet at Stafford, an old favourite, and it completed a decent day out.

The record at Turf Moor since 1983 now stood as follows.

Played 10

Won 9

Drew 1

Lost 0

For 29

Against 7

I hope they stay up so we can visit Turf Moor again.

Tales From The Long Haul

Posted on October 26, 2025 by Chris Axon

Chelsea vs. Ajax : 22 October 2025.

Our second home game of the Champions League campaign was to be against the famous Ajax of Amsterdam, but this match report does not begin in either London or Amsterdam, but in Miami.

A month or so ago, UEFA “reluctantly” – their words, not mine – allowed the first-ever games to take place outside national European boundaries.

There was to be a game between Barcelona and Villareal in Miami, Florida and a game between Milan and Como in Perth, Western Australia.

Thankfully, on the morning of our game, it was announced by La Liga that their game would not be happening, and I – and hopefully most football supporters – was extremely happy. It felt like a glorious rebuff to the shady money-makers that lurk in and around football’s commercial landscape these days.

One down, one to go.

The Italian game might be a harder nut to crack, but let’s hope Serie A refuse to allow it too. The San Siro is being used for the opening ceremony of 2026 Winter Olympics, and I believe that the Milan directors are using this as an excuse to find an alternative venue for their home game with Como two days later. But surely, a venue swap should take place here? Milan are due to play Como at San Siro on 8 February 2026, while Como are at home to Milan on 21 December. Just swap the venues on those dates. Easy.

As an aside, Milan and Como are just fifty miles apart. How mad to expect their fans to travel to Australia.

This important parcel of football news dominated my early morning thoughts as I endeavoured to get some work done during another 6am to 2pm shift that would allow me to get up to London in good time.

However, I was rather tired, and it was all my own doing. The previous evening, I had decided to traipse over to Portishead to watch my local non-league team Frome Town tackle one of the early pace-setters Portishead Town. Rather than rest up and go to bed early on the Tuesday ahead of a very long day – 5am to 1am – I was lured to the game by the thought of Frome winning and us going top of the league for the first time this season.

The game itself wasn’t much to shout about; it was a niggly, physical battle played out on a 3G pitch at a very anaemic venue. Frome withstood some early pressure, but defended resolutely, and created a few chances, and settled for a deserved 0-0 draw. There were some road works on the return journey home, and I didn’t get in until just before 11pm.

I got through my work and collected Pinky and Perky at just after 2pm. I made good time en route to London.

I explained to the lads that I just wasn’t feeling much in the way of excitement for the evening’s game, and PD admitted the same feelings. With eight games in this phase, their just doesn’t seem to be the same degree of tension, drama and excitement in each individual match.

This new process features thirty-two teams. Eight make their way automatically to the first knock-out round in the New Year, while sixteen get a chance to qualify via an extra knock-out round. It honestly seems like it will take forever to unfold and be resolved.

When we won in 2012 and 2021, we played six group games, six knock-out games and the final, a total of thirteen games.

This season, should we win again, we could play up to seventeen games.

More games, more games, more games; it’s the UEFA way.

After my usual dip into “Koka” for some food – a few Dutch lads were eating outside – I joined everyone at “The Eight Bells”

Jimmy had lost his father, Stavros, a few weeks ago, and I toasted his memory.

We also toasted the memory of Matthew Harding, our former director, who perished on this night in 1996.

I have told my story about Matthew Harding before; meeting him in the Gunter Arms before our game with Viktoria Zizkov and then giving him the thumbs up from the East Lower, but Jimmy had a nice story too.

He had travelled up for our FA Cup game at Ayresome Park in January 1993, but only heard late on, when they were on Teesside, that the game had been postponed. They darted inside a local pub for a drink, and Matthew was in the pub too, and bought the Chelsea fans present a drink.

I have always said that Matthew would have loved these European nights, bless him.

RIP Stavros

RIP Matthew

Stamford Bridge was under a deluge of rain as we reached our allotted seats.

The news of the team had trickled through, and it was a mix of experience and youth, and one that surprised me a little. Only Romeo Lavia remained from the first half at Forest.

Jorgensen

Caicedo – Fofana – Tosin – Hato

Lavia – Enzo

Estevao – Buonanotte – Gittens

Guiu

Of course, there had been some recollections of our last meeting with Ajax; the pulsating 4-4 draw in 2019 and our recovery from 1-4 down, plus the agony of the disallowed goal from Dave very late on. There were no Ajax fans allowed at that game, so this would be their supporters’ first view of Stamford Bridge. In that game, I was so pleased to see Ajax in their world famous white and red kit. This time, we were not so lucky. They appeared in an insipid off-white number that was probably named after a frothy coffee variant that didn’t exist thirty years ago.

There was a timely mention of Matthew Harding before kick-off and the large flag bearing his image was floated over the heads of the spectators below us in the MHL.

The game began with us attacking The Shed, and very soon a respectful “One Matthew Harding” rang out from the stand that bears his name.

I must admit that it took me a few moments to realise that Caicedo was indeed an inverted right-back, and it looked a very fluid formation, with Buonanotte and Enzo playing well ahead of the other two in midfield.

Ajax had a little of the ball to begin with, but we soon started to dominate the play.

But we all waited for the first effort on goal from either team.

Ten minutes, eleven minutes, twelve minutes, thirteen minutes…it seemed that the lack of urgency in getting this first phase completed – the last of the knock-out games isn’t until 25 February – had transmitted to the players on the pitch.

“In your own time, lads.”

On the quarter of an hour, the game changed.

A lunging studs-up tackle by Kenneth Taylor on Facundo Buonanotte resulted a very quick VAR review, and then a red card.

Facunell.

Ajax were down to ten men.

Just after, a cross from the right from Buonanotte was ably headed back across the six-yard box by Wesley Fofana for Marc Guiu to stab home.

I turned to the bloke next to me – Alan from Wandsworth – and said “he needed that goal, great.”

In the immediate aftermath of the goal, I experienced the ache of having to endure “Chelsea Dagger” and I turned to the people behind me in the MHU and looked on in disgust.

Their actions were, indeed, a dagger to my heart.

(As an aside, I found no solace in the fact that the link that I posted to the “Stop This Shite” petition in one of my most recent match reports garnered just five clicks…)

However, my spirits were immediately lifted by two lovely text messages :

Alan, Sarf London : “THTCAUN.”

Josh, North America : “THTCAUN.”

I replied “COMLD.”

Game on, let’s go to work.

The first reaction from the home support was aimed at the Ajax manager John Heitinga, in lieu of our fine work on the banks of the River Trent a few days previously.

“Sacked in the morning. You’re getting sacked in the morning.”

Shots from Jamie Gittens and Caicedo were aimed at the Shed End goal.

On twenty-seven minutes, with Caicedo again within distance, the crowd yelled “SHOOOOOOT” and shooooot he did.

I was right in line with his effort but didn’t see the deflection that took the ball away from Remko Pasveer in the Ajax goal.

The net rippled, 2-0 to Chelsea, and a nice run down to Parkyville by the scorer.

I hoped for more goals.

Alas, on thirty-three minutes, during a rare Ajax attack, Tosin Adarabioyo tangled with Raul Moro, and the referee signalled a penalty.

Ex-Burnley and Manchester United loanee Wout Weghorst was rather lucky as his shot went under the full-length dive from Jorgensen.

The penalty was their first effort on goal.

The Matthew Harding serenaded the scorer with “you’re just a shit Andy Carrol” and this chant was often repeated during the game; in the second-half, Weghorst was defending a corner, and he gave a smile and a thumbs-up, a nice reaction.

On thirty-six minutes, a fantastic cross from Gittens on the left set up Enzo but he was unable to get a good-enough touch.

On forty-five minutes, Gittens to Enzo again, but our Argentinian was scythed down by Weghorst. His lunge was accompanied by a large splash of rain that could be seen from one-hundred yards away, though not quite as prominent as in the Tom Finney photo from 1956.

Enzo stroked the ball confidently in.

In the sixth minute of injury time, Estevao was tackled twice on the edge of the box, and at least one of these resulted in a penalty. If it was the second tackle, it looked outside the box.

Whatever.

Enzo gave the ball to Estevao, who confidently lifted the ball into the left-hand top corner.

Blimey, 4-1 at half-time, and three penalties.

By this time, I had been chatting to Alan alongside me, and we shared a few Chelsea stories. I told him about this blog, and he mentioned a podcast that he is involved in. I spoke a little about Frome Town and Alan said how he loves the non-league scene too. He referred to a good friend, Adam, who follows Derby County and Mickleover Sports. Well, what a small world. I know a lad from Frome who lives in Derby, follows Derby County and watches Mickleover Sports too. It turned out that my mate, Mark, who visited us in the Eight Bells last season when Derby’s FA Cup game at Leyton Orient was called off, knew of Alan’s friend Adam. They live very close to each oter, a few miles apart maybe.

Here was proof that football, yet again, is a very small world.

At the start of the second half, Enzo Maresca made three changes.

Trevoh Chalobah for Tosin.

Andrey Santos for Enzo.

Tyrique George for Guiu.

With the game surely won in the first half, the second period took on the feel of a friendly, or at least a training match, with Ajax encamped in their half for virtually its entirety.

After only three minutes, Lavia played in Andrey Santos but the ball held up for Tyrique George to score, again via a deflected shot. Alas, I didn’t catch his long slide into our corner, but I did capture the aftermath.

5-1 to Chelsea now, and game over.

The rest of the half involved us warming to the talents of Estevao and sitting back to hope for extra goals.

Estevao did not disappoint. He displayed some great control in tight areas, and almost netted with a goal from an audacious bicycle-kick and another from a powerful drive that was touched over by the Ajax ‘keeper.

Jamie Gittens endeavoured to screw a shot past Pasveer from down below us, but all his continued efforts never paid off.

Reggie Walsh, barely seventeen, came on for Lavia on sixty-five minutes.

Despite the ease at which we took Ajax apart, the noisiest chant of the night, “Carefree”, on eighty minutes, came as a shock and a surprise, out of the blue even.

Stamford Bridge had been quiet on this European night, a shame.

The Ajax fans had made some noise all night long and increased the volume and intensity as the game neared its conclusion. I had no idea what they were singing about though; no doubt that much of it was about the hated Feyenoord.

The game came to its conclusion. There had been plenty of goals in this week of Champions League football and it was nice to be able to join in.

PSG 7

Barcelona 6

PSV 6

Chelsea 5

Liverpool 5

Arsenal 4

Bayern 4

Borussia Dortmund 4

Inter 4

Maybe here is a clue why some supporters don’t mind this elongated phase before we reach the more dramatic style of UEFA football that I grew up with. Is there a tendency for teams to be able to relax, now, knowing that each game is not quite so important? Who knows? Answers on a postcard.

I was absolutely drenched on the walk back to the car but thankfully didn’t feel too tired – a miracle – and eventually made it home at exactly at 1am.

Everyone on social media was seemingly upbeat about the evening’s game with a lot of the focus on the youth in our team, not least the three young scorers.

Whether we are good enough to secure an automatic place into the fabled round of sixteen in March, yes March, remains to be seen.

Onwards!

Podcast : https://www.youtube.com/@talkfootballpodcast

Tales From The Usual Suspects And Danny Bloody Wellbeck

Posted on September 28, 2025 by Chris Axon

Chelsea vs. Brighton And Hove Albion : 27 September 2025.

After four consecutive away games, the boys were back in town.

And after driving a total of 768 miles on Saturday and Tuesday, I was bloody happy about it. As PD mentioned, “this will seem like a five-minute flit up the M4.”

Indeed.

We were all pleased that we were back to our first “Saturday 3, o’clock” fixture of the season too.

It was an easy trip east. The 120 miles took me a few minutes shy of three hours and, at the suggestion of Tim from North Bristolshire, I parked at a new location, on Moylan Road, which seems to be as close as I can get to Stamford Bridge to enable me to still park for free on Saturdays.

After a breakfast on the North End Road, there was a rendezvous with the usual suspects at “The Eight Bells” for a couple of hours. Allongside me were Jimmy the Greek, Nick, Salisbury Steve, Ian, Bobby, PD and Parky. My two Brighton mates Mac and Barry called in to see us all and of course I enjoyed seeing them both again. Minnesota Josh called in for a couple of scoops, too. However, the guests of honour were Lorna and Rich, from Edinburgh, on a Chelsea and Oasis weekend. I decided to head off to Stamford Bridge relatively early. I left with Josh at around 1.45pm.

There was a stand-off at the security – “is that a camera? – but I was in at 2.15pm. My SLR, therefore, would thankfully be used at a game for the first time this season. I was determined to take some decent shots, having made do with the inferior Sony “pub camera” in the previous six games.

Elsewhere in the football world, it was the day of the third qualifying round of the FA Cup. Frome Town were to play at AFC Totton, now two levels above my home town team, at the same time that Chelsea were to start in SW6. That would be a very tough match and I never really expected too much.

However, our local neighbours Westbury United, for who my old Chelsea mate Mark is the club chairman, were kicking off at 12.30pm at home to Farnborough, who are from the same division as Totton. There was a great deal of “buzz” locally about this match, as Westbury had been picked by the BBC to show via the red button, and a massive crowd was expected.

I had texted Mark a “good luck” message in the morning.

That game began at 12.30pm, and a workmate was keeping me updated. Farnborough had a player sent off on the hour, and Westbury were holding on. Sadly, at 2.40pm, just as I was getting ready for our game at Stamford Bridge, I saw that Westbury conceded a late goal on ninety-eight minutes.

Ah, bugger.

As I was waiting for a few people to arrive in The Sleepy Hollow, I was able to glance at a friend’s match programme. In the obituary section, I spotted the face of Albert, who used to sit in front of me in the years since 1997, but who sadly passed away last May.

I include it below.

Bless you Albert. You are missed.

The troops rolled in. First was Ollie, a lad from Brighton, who is the son of my long-time mate Andy. We go back to the promotion season of 1988/89 when we used to drink in “The Black Bull” aka “The Pensioner” and now “The Chelsea Gate.” Clive arrived, fresh from a drink with Gary, and then PD.

None of us really knew what to expect from this match. We had walloped Brighton 4-2 at home back in October but had lost 1-2 and 0-3 in a horrible week of away games in February.

“Without Cole Palmer, we’re not much of a team, are we really?”

Enzo Maresca chose this starting eleven.

Sanchez

James – Chalobah – Hato – Cucurella

Santos – Caicedo

Estevao– Enzo – Neto

Joao Pedro

This eleven featured no fewer than four Brighton players, with Buonanotte the most recent addition not involved on this day.

It was a sunny day in SW6.

At three o’clock, the game began, as did the one in Totton just outside Southampton.

We began brightly. This is a familiar phrase that I use. To be truthful, I am sick to death of it, especially since it implies that our play often fails to live up to a good start, and the sad fact is that this is true; that our play often then struggles to maintain its momentum.

There was a crisp free-kick from Enzo Fernandez, playing in the hole – or “the ten” in modern parlance – that drew a smart save from Bart Verbruggen, who sounds like the destination of a cross-channel ferry.

“Good save, son.”

Marc Cucurella then flashed a shot wide.

Next up, it was Reece’s turn from a free kick, from a greater angle, but his effort was parried by Verbruggen.

Brighton threatened a little, but nothing too sinister.

There was an impudent nutmeg performed with aplomb by Estevao on Lewis Dunk very close to the half-way line and the pacy wingman raced away down the right-hand side of the pitch. It seemed almost inhuman that the wiry and lithe Brazilian should attempt such a clever dink against Dunk, who has the turning circle of the QE2. Estevao, urged on by us all, neared the goal but was still at an angle and his low shot was blocked.

Soon after, in a very similar position, he tried again but it the outcome was almost the same, an easy parry.

I noted to myself that the stadium, despite some decent football being played before us all, was like a morgue. There had been virtually no singing, not stimulation from the crowd; it was all very dispiriting.

I hate modern football.

The two wingers, like at Lincoln on Tuesday, then swapped flanks.

Halfway through the first-half, I realised that nobody had updated me with score updates from Totton, so I did so myself. It wasn’t good news. Frome were losing 0-2.

Ugh.

A mere two or three seconds after, a brilliant ball from Moises Caicedo was played into the path of Reece James. He took a couple of paces and floated a great ball towards the goal. The cross took a slight deflection off the leg of a Brighton defender, but the ball sat up sweetly for Enzo to rise unhindered at the far post to knock in with the easiest header of his career.

We were 2-0 down one minute and we were 1-0 up the next.

An odd sensation.

And an even odder sentence.

Football, eh?

With us coasting, and on top, playing well, Clive changed direction.

“How old is Boris Becker?”

“How old is Lance Armstrong?”

“What’s this nonsense, Clive? Shall I have a go? What’s Franz Klammer’s shoe size?”

Clive responded with “how old was Larry Grayson when he died?”

It must be noted, here, that Clive visits nursing homes, and provides games, music and quizzes for the residents, hence his odd trio of questions.

Answers :

57
54
Not a clue.
71.

The game continued, and we enjoyed most of the ball. Brighton’s attacks were rare. Their fans were subdued and quiet too. On the balcony between their two tiers of supporters, I spotted a joint Hearts and Brighton flag – “Brothers In Arms” – and I wondered if Rich had spotted it. Hearts are his team in Edinburgh.

We were pretty content at the break at Stamford Bridge. Down in Totton, it was still 0-2.

The second half began with Chelsea attacking us in the Matthew Harding, and the atmosphere was still deadly dull and quiet. I was tempted to think it was the worst-ever.

The.

Worst.

Ever.

Think about it.

Not long into the second half, there was a heavy touch from Andrey Santos, and this put us under pressure. Trevoh Chalobah raced back alongside Diego Gomez, and there was a coming together of players just outside the box.

It was a shame, because Santos had impressed me in the first-half, alert and well-balanced, doing the simple things effectively.

VAR was called into action. After an age, the referee spoke into his mic.

Off went Chalobah.

Maresca chose to replace Santos with Josh Acheampong.

From the resulting free-kick, Gomez blasted over.

What now?

With around half-an-hour to go, who could possibly say?

At least this sudden adversity stirred the Chelsea supporters into life and a loud “CAREFREE” boomed, momentarily at least, around Stamford Bridge.

On the hour, there was a spritely run from Kaoru Mituma and his shot ricocheted across the box. The ball could have gone anywhere. We were starting to lose control.

On sixty-three minutes, Malo Gusto replaced Estevao.

Shortly after, there was a change from the Brighton bench too, and one of the substitutes was Danny Bloody Welbeck, and thousands of Chelsea fans around the world uttered the immortal lines “he always scores against us.”

On seventy-two minutes, Welbeck screwed a shot just wide.

There was a roller from Enzo that did not threaten. This was a rare threat from us.

Sadly, on seventy-seven minutes, Yankuba Minteh raced past Gusto and pinged a swift cross into the six-yard and that man Welbeck headed home emphatically.

Well, bollocks.

On eighty minutes, Maresca had clearly decided that all of the meaningful action would be taking pace in our half and changed things again.

Benoit Badiashile replaced Hato.

Romeo Lavia replaced Neto.

Thinking to myself : “you know we’re in trouble when Badiashile” comes on as a substitute.”

Sometimes I wished that Todd Boehley’s Lamborghini had broken down near Lyon or somewhere.

Malo Gusto, urged on by everyone, was sent free and as I reached down to pull up my SLR to record a goal, he decided to pass.

The frustrated crowd groaned.

This whole match was drifting away from us.

I thought, as did many, that a very high challenge on Gusto on Minteh would lead to a penalty, but after another VAR delay – how boring – we were let off, somehow.

There was an argy-bargy down at The Shed End but I was too far away to see who was pushing who.

The referee signalled eleven extra minutes and Stamford Bridge collectively sighed.

After two minutes of injury time, Acheampong booted out a ball cheaply for a corner, and from a short corner, a deep cross was hooked in from their left and I was aghast to see two, or even three, Brighton players unmarked at the far post. Mats Weifer was on hand to head the ball back across the box…we all experienced a fear of impending doom…and Maxim De Cuyper was one of two players free who headed home.

The scorer raced over to celebrate in front of Barry, Mac and co, and I felt ill.

In the tenth minute of stoppage time, with us trying to navigate the ball out of the box with Brighton players swarming, the ball was stolen and – guess who? – Wellbeck was sent through and calmly slotted home past Sanchez.

Well, bollocks.

By now, a good three-quarters of the Stamford Bridge crowd had left, some spewing words of anger at the manager and players alike.

Ollie, and Big John, but not many others, remained to the very last whistle.

Down in Totton, Frome had lost 2-4.

It had not been a good day at all.

I felt like saying “would the real Chelsea step forward and make themselves known please?”

You know what, it might take us all season long to discover who the real Chelsea are, and there isn’t a punchline.

Next up, two more home games, Jose Mourinho’s Benfica and champions Liverpool.

Excited?

No, neither am I.

Albert RIP

Tales From Two Derbies

Posted on September 1, 2025 by Chris Axon

Chelsea vs. Fulham : 30 August 2025.

Our third match of this new season was to see us play Fulham at home. Our nearest neighbours – I can hardly give them the honour of labelling them as rivals – had beaten us 2-1 on Boxing Day at Stamford Bridge last season and so we all hoped for no repeat. That defeat started a run of poor form from us, but ironically the win by the same score at Craven Cottage in April initiated a fine revival.

With the kick-off for this game taking place at 12.30pm, there was no time to lose. I collected PD at 7am and Parky at 7.30am. We called in at the “McDonalds” at Melksham and we breakfasted “on the hoof” to waste as little time as possible. There were grey skies on the way up to London, but the clouds cleared over the last part of the familiar journey. After driving down onto the Fulham Palace Road, I dropped the lads off at 9.45am at the very southern edge of the King’s Road, and I was parked up on Charleville Road to the north ten minutes later.

For twenty minutes I had driven right through the heart of Fulham, and I mused that the neatly-appointed terraced houses that have undergone a metamorphosis from pre-WW2 working class homes to the dwellings of the “well-to-do” formed an ironic backdrop to the lunchtime game, in a sport that has undergone its own gentrification over the past three decades.

Of course, Fulham is part of the larger borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, and within its boundaries there is another professional football club; Queens Park Rangers. We last played them in the league over ten years ago. What happened to them? Actually, who cares? I never liked them, and I dislike them much more than jolly old Fulham.

On the drive up to London, I was able to update the two lads about the fine form of my local team Frome Town.

On Bank Holiday Monday, I assembled with a few good friends, and the might of Frome’s travelling away army, as we travelled the eight miles over the county boundary into Wiltshire for the away game at Westbury United. In a scenario that strangely mirrors the situation in West London, there is a rather placid rivalry between Frome Town and Westbury United, whereas Frome’s most heated local rivalry is with Melksham Town, further away to the north.

Frome and Westbury have not met too often in recent league seasons, whereas Frome and Melksham have enjoyed many tussles over the years. The Melksham fixture has become a real “grudge match” of late, whereas with Westbury it seems a lot friendlier. To illustrate this point, when Westbury United were met with huge financial problems last season, it was Frome who allowed them to play a few home games at Badgers Hill.

A crowd of 842 assembled at Meadow Lane – now Platinum Hyundai Park – for the game on the Monday. It’s a pleasant little ground at Westbury, the green paintwork of the stands mirrors the all-green of their kit, and the pitch is surrounded on three sides by trees, leaving enough space for the white horse carved into the steep slope of Salisbury Plain to be seen in one corner. Like many non-league grounds, there is a perfect ambience.

Before the game, my Chelsea mate Mark who lives near the ground was able to pose for a photo in the main stand – two rows of seats – alongside Glenn and Ron, who were at their third Frome Town matches of the season. Mark and I go back a long way. He was with Glenn, PD and I on the drive to Stamford Bridge for the monumental game with Leeds United in April 1984.

On a bumpy pitch, and with a troublesome wind blowing, the first half began poorly. However, on thirty minutes a fine cross into the box was met with a leap from Archie Ferris who nodded down for new striker David Duru to slam home. It became an increasingly feisty affair, and the quality only improved slightly, but the away team held on to an important 1-0 win.

Thus far, Frome Town have won all their games this season; three in the league, one in the FA Cup, one in the FA Trophy.

After the Chelsea vs. Fulham game, whatever the score, my attention would be centered on a tough away game at Plymouth Parkway in the next round of the FA Cup that would be kicking off at 3pm.

I caught the train at West Ken, changed at Earl’s Court – bumping into three mates who were headed the opposite direction, “The Clarence” on the North End Road – and reached Putney Bridge at 10.30am. Our cosy corner of the pub just had enough space for one more. I squeezed in alongside the usual crew.

A big shout out here to my mate Ian, who I have only really got to know these past two years, but who was celebrating the fiftieth anniversary, to the actual day, if not the actual time, of his first-ever Chelsea match. His “first time” was an away fixture at Kenilworth Road in the old Second Division on Saturday 30 August 1975. The match unfortunately ended up 3-0 to Luton Town. The team that day was a real mixture of old and new, with 1970 stalwarts John Dempsey, Ron Harris and Charlie Cooke alongside Ray Wilkins, Ian Britton, Teddy Maybank, John Sparrow and Brian Bason. The gate was a decent 18,565.

Ian’s non-league team Brackley Town, who were in the same division as Frome Town in 2011/12, would be featured on TV later in the day with their National League home game against Scunthorpe United being shown live.

It was super to meet up with Deano once again. Since we last spoke, he had visited Chile and Argentina with his dear wife Linda, and he regaled me with some lovely stories, although the time that a puma jumped up on top of his camper van during a night in Patagonia scared me to death.

I spotted an old photo of “The Eight Bells” and I include it for interest.

Our favourite Fulham pub dates from 1629. From 1886 to 1888, Fulham Football Club used it as their changing rooms when they played at nearby Raneleigh Gardens. Unlike Chelsea, Fulham have had many previous grounds, just like QPR, and flitted around this area, on both sides of the Thames for many years before finding a permanent home at Craven Cottage. It would have been all so different if Gus Mears had successfully tempted Fulham Football Club to play at Stamford Bridge at the turn of the twentieth century, eh?

Still wary of malfunctioning digital season tickets, I left the pub before the others at 11.30am. There was a gaggle of Fulham lads on the northbound platform and no doubt a lot of their match-going fans would have been drinking in the pubs in the immediate area of “The Eight Bells.”

There was no queue at the turnstiles, and no issues with my ‘phone, and I was in.

It was 11.50am.

On Thursday we had heard about the teams that we would be playing in the Champions League first phase, that long and laborious process that will stretch out from 17 September to 28 January. I have a few things to say about all this.

Firstly, I don’t like the fact that UEFA have tagged two extra games into this phase. An away game in Europe is no laughing matter for the many supporters that try to attend as many games as possible. Isn’t that the point of being a supporter? As a result of this, I am absolutely toying with the option of missing one of the four home games as a single game protest that won’t mean a jot to anyone else but will mean a lot to me.

Secondly, I am fearful of how much the home games will cost. Will the prime Barcelona game be priced at a different level to the other three, most noticeably Pafos? Or will all of these come in at the same mark? If so, how much? I am guessing £60 for my seat. Ouch. That’s £240 for those four games. Double ouch.

Thirdly, due to my attendance at four games in the US in June and July, I only have six days leave left until the end of March. Ouch again. With of this this in mind, I will try to get to one European away match, but surely no more. Domestically, I have a fruity little trip to Lincoln City – can’t wait – to plan out, plus there is the problem of the away game at Elland Road on a Wednesday in December, which will surely need paying attention to.

Munich is out. It’s too early. Plus, there is a part of me that wants to keep that 2012 memory pure, and unaltered. I might never visit Munich again for this reason. Atalanta is an option as it is the only stadium, and city – Bergamo – that I have not visited. Napoli is an exhilarating place, its team now managed by Antonio Conte, and during any other year, I would be tempted even though I visited it in 2012. And then there is dear old Baku. I have visited it three times already; in 2017 and 2019 with Chelsea, and last December on my return hop from Almaty. I would dearly love to return, but there is the huge problem of the time it takes to get to and from Azerbaijan.

All I can say is that is a lovely problem to have and watch this space.

Incidentally, isn’t it odd that we have been paired with four teams from the 2011/12 campaign?

Napoli, Benfica, Barcelona, Bayern.

Inside Stamford Bridge, all was quiet. Not much was happening. Everything was quiet. My focus, again, because of the proximity, was on the ridiculous line of “Dugout Club” spectators who were watching the players go through their pre-match shuttles pitch side.

At 12.20pm, a trio of pre-match songs that are meant to get us in the mood.

“Our House.”

“Parklife.”

“Liquidator.”

Enzo Maresca had chosen the same eleven that started at Stratford.

Our Robert, Our Malo, Our Trev, Our Tosin, Our Marc, Our Enzo, Our Moises, Our Estevao, Our Joao, Our Pedro, Our Liam.

Willian and Pedro on the wings? Well, it worked in 2016/17.

“Blue Is The Colour” boomed out and now we joined in.

Beautiful.

As the teams appeared, fireworks were set off from the top of The Shed roof once again, and I wasn’t sure if I really, deep-down, liked this or not. It seems to have taken over from flames in front of the East Stand anyway.

Modern football.

Flash, bang, wallop.

Fulham have gone for an all-white kit this season and I wonder what their traditionalists think about it. On this occasion, they wore black socks.

With Clive and PD alongside me, the game began.

We were treated to an early flurry of chances; a Joao Pedro roller, a Liam Delap shot that was blocked, a well-worked Fulham move that ended with a shot just wide.

Fulham : “is this a library?”

Chelsea : “there’s only one team in Fulham.”

Alas, Delap went down with what looked like a strain as he chased a long ball, and after some treatment was substituted by the youngster Tyrique George, he of the equaliser at Craven Cottage in April. Without the physical presence of the robust Delap, we looked a lot weaker up front. I have never been convinced with George leading the line.

There were two shots on goal from Fulham, who were looking the livelier now.

On twenty minutes, a spin away from trouble by Rodrigo Muniz, and the ball was played forward to Joshua King. I immediately presumed that King was offside, as did one or two others. However, play continued. King turned Tosin easily and fired the visitors from down the road ahead.

Ah, bollocks.

I hoped and prayed that VAR would chalk out the goal for offside. Firstly, there was nothing, but after a considerable wait, VAR was called into action, but for a foul and not for offside. Colour me confused.

Then another wait. Eventually, the referee Rob Jones walked over to the pitch side monitor and gazed at it for yet more minutes. The decision was no goal because of a foul.

What foul? We never saw a foul.

Anyway, I didn’t cheer the decision and on with the game.

This “get out of jail” moment resulted in the loudest moment thus far as a loud “Carefree” sounded out from the Matthew Harding.

However, PD was unimpressed.

“We are awful.”

We toiled away but didn’t create much at all. There was a lovely, cushioned flick from Estevao that set up the overlapping Malo Gusto but his cross was easily claimed by Bernd Leno.

Fulham then retaliated, and Robert Sanchez blocked, but offside anyway.

“Neto is quiet, eh?”

On thirty-seven minutes, a passage of play summed it all up. Enzo Fernandez tried his best to plod away from his marker, but took an extra touch and lost possession, and then Moises Caicedo invited a booking with a silly and lazy challenge.

Oh dear.

When Tosin ventured forward for set pieces, the Fulham fans sang a very derogatory song about him.

“He’s a wanker you know, Tosin Adarabioyo.”

I was at least impressed that they knew how to pronounce his surname; a feat that is still too difficult for us Chelsea fans.

On forty-two minutes, at last a jinking run from Neto out on the left that forced a corner. From that, a header over.

Just after, I moaned about Estevao coming inside when he had so much space behind the last defender. With that – he must have heard me – he set off on a jinking run down the right and into all that beautiful space, but it came to nothing.

This was all so disjointed.

With the VAR delay, there were eight minutes of extra time signalled.

Deep into this stoppage time, there was a run of corners. Shots were blocked, pinball in the six-yard area. Then, one final corner from the boot of Enzo in front of the baying Cottagers. A perfect delivery, and a perfect leap from Joao Pedro. His header was clean, and unchallenged.

We were up 1-0.

Phew.

At the break, we reflected on a poor game of football thus far.

Thankfully, there was a tad more energy and vigour in the way we began the second period. On fifty-four minutes, with me trying to get a worthwhile shot using my pub camera, I spotted a Trevoh Chalobah shot / cross hitting the arm of a Fulham defender, and I immediately thought “handball”, before snapping the resulting shot from Caicedo on film. There was an appeal from Enzo, nearest to the referee, but I saw the man in black gesture that the ball had hit his shoulder. I wasn’t so bloody sure.

After what seemed an age, VAR was called into action, and then more staring at the pitch-side monitor from Rob Jones. After – what? – three minutes maybe, the mic’d up referee began babbling to the crowd but it wasn’t too clear. I then I heard him utter the phrase “unnatural position” and I knew our luck was in.

Penalty.

I whispered to Clive.

“Unnatural position? Is that the same as Parky going to the bar?”

Enzo made up for his wavering display by striking the ball right down the middle, right down Broadway, right down Fulham Broadway, right down Walham Green.

We were now 2-0 up.

Another phew.

There were glimpses from Estevao of potential greatness. There was a fantastic wiggle, but his effort went just wide.

“Champions of the World” sang the Chelsea faithful, and I toyed with notion of us being top, but I soon decided against a “Catch Us If You Can” update on “Facebook.”

I looked over at the Fulham fans.

They derided us with a “WWYWYWS” chant, and Clive and I just laughed.

“Villa Park.”

“Exactly.”

No more needs to be said. They couldn’t even send 20,000 to Birmingham in their biggest game for decades and decades.

I looked above The Shed, saw the “World Champions” banner and mused that they aren’t even champions of their own postcode.

On the hour, Joao Pedro came close with three efforts. He was sent through, one on one with Leno, but missed out. Then came a shot that was blocked. Then a fantastic cross from Neto down below us that picked him out, but the ball as just out of reach, which I just about caught on film.

On sixty-eight minutes, Jamie Gittens replaced Estevao.

“I’ve seen enough. He’s going to be good.”

Gittens looked neat in his cameo down below me.

On eighty-one minutes, a double substitution.

Andrey Santos for George, who had been quiet.

Reece James for Pedro Neto, who had improved in the second half.

With that, PD and Clive substituted themselves and left too.

On eighty-five minutes, a Joao Pedro volley but a fine Leno save. Our striker was everywhere inside the box in that second period; my man of the match, I think.

I am sad to report that the atmosphere was so mild, though.

Sigh.

There was a great cross from the Fulham substitute Adama Triore from the right that went unpunished, a free header missing the target.

A shot from distance from Reece James.

Another eight minutes of injury time was met with groans.

“Groans from even the Fulham fans I think.”

I just wanted to get on my way home.

There was a little late drama. Another cross from Traore was just a touch too deep, and then the resultant corner allowed a header that was hacked off the line by none other than Joao Pedro.

Definitely man of the match.

At the end of the game, at around 2.30pm, yet more bloody fireworks flew into the air from the top of The Shed.

Good grief.

The chap in front commented “that’s a bit much, innit?”

“Yeah, it’s only Fulham.”

Postscript :

On the drive home, I was elated to hear that Frome Town had beaten Plymouth Parkway 4-0 in the First Qualifying Round of the FA Cup. This was a fine away win against a team one step above in the football pyramid.

BA13 vs. BA11

SW6 vs. SW6

Tales From An Evening Out In London

Posted on August 29, 2025 by Chris Axon

West Ham United vs. Chelsea : 22 August 2025.

I always look forward to the first away match each season. I will bump into a ton of mates at the first home game of a new campaign, but way more at the first away fixture. At such games, in pubs or on concourses or in the away section, it’s impossible to go more than a few minutes without seeing someone that I know. It’s all about big numbers in small spaces.

The first away fixture of the new season would be sending us out to the East End of London, and despite the inconvenience of a Friday evening kick-off, that was alright with me.

West Ham United vs. Chelsea at 8pm on a Friday night?

Oh, go on then.

I was parked up outside Barons Court tube station on Margravine Gardens at 5pm, and I fancied a jolt of caffeine before Parky, PD and I headed out east. Our usual café just across the way from this red-bricked station, where Parky and I chatted to Seb Coe after a game at Arsenal in 2012, was closing and so we tried “Gail’s Café” for the first time.

“If we lose tonight, we shan’t be coming here again” I warned my two mates. My football-going routines are full of such superstitions.

After some expensive but bland coffee, we caught a District Line train to Westminster, then a Jubilee train to Canary Wharf. On these two journeys, we were the only Chelsea fans. We saw a just a few West Ham. The ratio on this day would be around 60,000 to 3,000 or 20 to 1, so it was not surprising that we were the lone Chelsea contingent. At Canary Wharf, we ascended into the light at the airy train station and into the London of finance, tall tower blocks and evening commuters heading away to their homes in the suburbs.

We turned a corner and spotted the first Chelsea presence of the evening; Leigh, Darren and a few others, mainly from Basingstoke as far as I could see, were drinking at “The Alchemist” and although we were tempted to stop, the consensus was to head over to the stadium even though it was still two hours to kick-off.

“Nice to see you chaps though evidently not that much”, I exclaimed, smiling, as we left them to walk over to the Docklands Light Railway. Before long, we had boarded the driver-less train (I was hoping that West Ham would be equally devoid of a leader) and we soon found ourselves at Pudding Mill Lane, which not only acts as the destination for away fans going to the London Stadium, but also for those attending the ABBA arena too.

It was a quarter of an hour walk to the away turnstiles, and it’s all so familiar now. This would be my ninth visit. Because we were there so early, and the foot traffic was very quiet, the immediate surroundings seemed even more anaemic than usual. There wasn’t the usual hustle and jostle of a football crowd. There were no street vendors, no hawkers of tat, no grafters, no food outlets, no noise, no nothing. It was a bland approach to the stadium, which itself is as bland as it gets. I was never a fan, even in its Olympic year.

There were quick security checks – no SLR this time either, my Sony pub camera was clasped in my hand and nobody spotted it – and the three of us were soon taking a lift to the area outside the away turnstiles. Sharing the tight space was a lone West Ham supporter.

“Here we go for another nine months of hell” he grumbled.

“That’s the spirit” I thought, remembering how awkward it used to be back in the ‘eighties when home fans talked to you as one of their own, and you tried to say as little as possible. I remember settling down to some pie and mash at “Nathan’s” on the Barking Road in 1986 and the West Ham fan sitting opposite trying to strike up a conversation with me about Tony Cottee or Mark Ward, and me being very taciturn.

More checks, more security, but we were in. I did say to the lads that I had fancied walking around the stadium to see if there are any things worth seeing, but without thinking, I was pulled into the away concourse, like a moth to a flame.

West Ham’s London Stadium might be the worst football stadium in London, in the topflight, maybe in the whole country, but I do like its airy concourses outside the steps to the away seats, which provide plenty of space for fellow fans to assemble, drink, and share a laugh. We soon bumped into “Eight Bells” regulars Jimmy and Ian. The latter bought me the dearest Diet Coke ever apparently.

“Cheers mate.”

And there they all were; many familiar faces, far too many to name, ready for the battle against our London enemy.

Yes, I love away games.

And yet, it has not been a good summer regarding away games in the up-coming season. To cut a long story short, many in our support base have felt let down by the club. Firstly, news about the away season ticket took forever to be communicated by the club. Then came the horrific news that away tickets were non-transferable, with the added piece of news that sporadic ID checks would take place at away games, a repeat of what allegedly happened at Tottenham last December.

This panicked many people. Two friends who have been away season ticket holders for a while have very kindly offered me their away tickets over the past seven or eight years if they could not attend games. They immediately contacted me to say that if they could not transfer tickets, they would opt out of renewing in 2025/26. This was understandable. But it meant that I would not be able to help many close friends to tickets, including Parky and PD on occasion.

If you are reading this and have received away tickets from me in this period, they have more-than-likely come via these two mates.

Then, long after the away season ticket cut-off time, we found out that Chelsea Football Club had reneged on this ruling – in other words, away tickets could be transferred – but without any clear communication in the change to their stance.

Everyone I knew was livid, not least my two mates.

It is rumoured that during this period of uncertainty, around two-hundred supporters left the away scheme.

That hurts.

What hurts even more is the near certainty that many away seats in the Chelsea sections at stadia in 2025/26 will be on sale on third party sites for extortionate and obscene prices. By creating a period of uncertainty in the ranks, perhaps on purpose, it’s likely that the club succeeded in weeding out some of our most loyal fans to gain financially from moving tickets to third party platforms.

It sickens me.

I was inside the upper tier with a good forty minutes to go as I fancied settling myself and clearing my head. I had been awake since 4.45am and was feeling a little jaded. My seat was in a very familiar position; the second row of the tier, right in line with the touchline. I was sat next to John and Gary.

The stadium took forever to fill up. I hated the booming dance music that sucks all the life out of the pre-match. I remember the days when football grounds would be bubbling away before kick-off, with songs being sung, and players being serenaded. Not so in 2025.

At last, bodies appeared. The stadium filled.

We heard, late on, that Cole Palmer had injured himself in the kick-in, so he was replaced by Estevao Willian.

Our team?

Sanchez

Gusto – Adarabioyo – Chalobah – Cucurella

Caicedo – Enzo

Estevao – Joao Pedro – Pedro Neto

Delap

“Bubbles” boomed as the players entered the pitch, the longest walk in football.

Chelsea were in all black.

Although this new kit looks clean and neat from a distance, I am not a fan of its odd white “false collar” but I absolutely loathe the Chelsea Collection badge from 1986. It was hated, really hated, when it came along almost forty years ago and there was a real sense of relief when the “lion rampant” badge was reinstated on our centenary in 2005.

In many circles, it was known as the “Millwall badge” and it is obvious why.

I then thought back to the “World Champions” logo on the rear of the hotel wall at Stamford Bridge and it all made perfect – muddled – sense.

Never mind, the oddballs who collect Chelsea shirts like a mania will love it.

West Ham themselves looked a little odd. There were no light blue sleeves, nor much sign of light blue anywhere on their kit. Their kit reminded me of the one they wore in 1986 when they finished in second place in the old First Division, their highest-ever placing.

At 8pm the evening’s entertainment began, and – as always – we attacked the other end in the first half.

It’s so difficult to get our whole section singing as one at West Hame, since there is that hideous void between the two levels. I have always had seats in the upper section and the view from there is bad enough, so God knows what it is like thirty-five rows behind me. I have had contrasting opinions of the view from the lower tier. Some say it’s OK, some hate it. The away fans tried to get behind the players as the game began.

In the first five minutes, Chelsea edged possession but then came the sixth minute.

The ball was played in to Lucas Paqueta, a long distance out, but allowed to advance. I immediately sensed the danger and yelled out “block the space” but nobody heard me. Chelsea backed off and the West Ham player strode on. To my utter disbelief, he struck a brilliant shot – moving and dipping over the flailing and failing arch of Robert Sanchez – and the ball crashed in. To my horror, I was right in line with the path of the ball.

Gutted.

The scorer shot off to celebrate in the right-hand corner and the home fans were in ecstasy.

Well, bollocks. After our staid draw against Palace, this was a horrible way to start our next game.

Behind me, four fans howled “we hate Sanchez” and I just glared at them.

We huffed and puffed and tried our best to get back to level terms. On fifteen minutes, we were given a corner on our right and Pedro Neto aimed at the near post. I captured the moment that Marc Cucurella lept and headed the ball on – a waning skill these days – and we watched with glee as a Chelsea player, no idea who, headed the ball in as it dropped inside the six-yard box.

GET IN.

Then, a scare. West Ham broke down our left in front of us, and the ball was played square. I immediately thought the recipient was offside, so when the cross was turned in by Niclas Fullkrug, whoever he is, I was adamant that VAR would rule it out. There was a wait, but yes, no penalty. Jean-Clair Todibo, whoever he is, was just offside.

Phew, but fuck VAR right?

Five minutes later, we did well to win the ball in the inside-right channel and Joao Pedro flicked a great cross over to a Chelsea player to sweep the ball in. I was too far away to be sure who scored and was too busy celebrating to watch the scorer run to the corner flag where he was mobbed.

A blue flare was dropped from behind me into the void below and the sulphurous fumes filled my nostrils.

On the pitch, we began to purr. You know we played well when I use that word.

The Chelsea support was loving this. With each move, we grew in confidence. Lovely.

On thirty-four minutes, a nice little moment of interplay between Liam Delap and Estevao enabled the young Brazilian to dance away inside the box – quite beautiful – and send over a teasing cross that a Chelsea player swept into the goal.

We were up 3-1.

You beauty.

Another race to the corner flag, more celebrations, more fist-punching from me, more snaps of the lads in black.

I thought back to New Jersey.

Another first-half with three goals.

I realised that I had sat the entire first half, leaning on the safe-standing rail in front of me, but totally engrossed in everything. It had been a cracking game thus far. As the players left the pitch at the break, there were audible boos from the home section.

We eventually learned that the three scorers were Joao Pedro, Pedro Neto and Enzo Pedro Neto, whoever he is.

What would the second half bring? Hopefully more goals.

To be honest, the second period was just funny.

We continued as we had finished. Enzo, though, shot over with a good chance.

On fifty-four minutes, a corner from Enzo down below us and the West Ham player in orange – their goalkeeper apparently – flapped at the ball. Moises Caicedo was on hand to smack the ball in.

More crazy celebrations.

Beautiful.

I remembered the poor bloke’s horrible debut on that sunny Sunday two years ago at the same stadium. Since then, what a revelation he has been.

Just four minutes later, a Pedro Neto corner from down below us, mayhem in the West Ham box, and the ball fell for Chalobah to smash in from close range.

5-1.

Heaven.

More celebrations in Chelsea-ville.

With half-an-hour to go, we hoped for more goals, but no. It wasn’t to be. But we didn’t care. To be honest, the home team conjured up a few chances, but we never looked like conceding.

The hapless Graham Potter was serenaded by the Chelsea faithful. Has there ever been a more lack-lustre personality linked with Chelsea Football Club? I think not.

Substitutions were made.

62 : Andrey Santos for Delap

69 : Reece James for Gusto.

69 : Wesley Fofana for Chalobah.

69 : Jorrel Hato for Cucurella.

A good chance for Estevao, running freely, but a mis-control and a touch too many and over. Ugh.

We didn’t care.

77 : Jamie Gittens for Estevao.

I spoke to the bloke to my left.

“This must be our biggest ever win at West Ham. Does it even up that 0-4 loss to them in 1986…that year again…no, I guess it doesn’t.”

I had answered my own question.

The last part of the game drifted away, as did a good proportion of the home fans.

My player of the match was Pedro Neto. His efforts up and down the wing were the stuff of legend.

At the end of the game, just happiness and smiles.

“Top of the league, lads.”

However, it has to be said; how poor were West Ham?

I trotted out to the concourse and went to use the gents before the trek back West. One of the idiosyncrasies of the gents at West Ham is that the toilets are like a maze, a never-ending pattern of urinals, going on forever. You’re lucky to get out. I reckon it’s one of the reasons why West Ham have gates of 62,000 every game. There was one bloke in there from the final day of the 2012 Olympics.

I met up with PD and Parky and we re-traced our steps. The first DLR train was an odd mix of West Ham fans and ABBA fans. People were dolled up for their night out and were wearing gaudy make up with bright and lurid fashions from the successful era of the mid-‘seventies to the early-‘eighties. The others were the ABBA fans.

From Pudding Mill Lane to Canary Wharf, the night now dark, and the return journey to Westminster, which always seems to be like something out of a dystopian sci-fi horror, then back to good old Barons Court at 11.30pm.

“Gail’s Café” passed its test.

I reached home at 2.20am and I fell asleep at 2.45am.

This Chelsea day at lasted from 4.45am to 2.45am.

Mamma mia.

Next up, another London Derby awaits.

See you in the pub.

BARONS COURT TO PUDDING MILL LANE

LONDON STADIUM

PUDDING MILL LANE TO BARONS COURT

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 The Benches, The Anfield Road And The Sleepy Hollow

Posted on May 7, 2025 by Chris Axon

Chelsea vs. Liverpool : 4 May 2025.

We were in for an alluring climax to the season. With two straight wins in the league on the bounce – not anticipated by me and probably many more – we were right in the thick of it in the scramble for Champions League and Europa League placings. Our next match, our ninth league game in London on the spin, was against newly crowned Champions Liverpool.

While huge parts of our Chelsea nation obsessed about the guard of honour, I shrugged my shoulders; it would all be over in less than ten seconds.

What with the closure of the District Line south to Wimbledon, there was a change of plan for our pre-match. “The Eight Bells” was jettisoned in favour of “The Tommy Tucker”, a mere Ian Hutchinson throw-in from the West Stand forecourt on Moore Park Road. I dropped PD and Parky right outside at just before 11am and then switched back on myself and drove over to my favourite breakfast spot, “The Half Moon Café” on Fulham Palace Road. If the other two lads could enjoy a four-hour session, then at least I could enjoy a full English.

I made it inside the pub at around 12.30pm, and the highlight of the time spent inside this busy boozer was the realisation that 1972 Olympic gold medallist Mary Peters was a few yards away. I can well remember watching her hop, skip and jump her way to her a gold in the pentathlon all those years ago.

For Mary Peters and Chelsea Football Club, Munich will always be a special city.

I left the pub earlier than the rest and reached the concourse just as Newcastle United scored a late, VAR-assisted penalty, to equalise at Brighton. Still, not to worry, a draw there did us a favour.

I reached my spot in The Sleepy Hollow, having smuggled my SLR in yet again. Before I settled in my seat, I took the camera out and took a few shots. However, a steward had evidently seen me and rather apologetically said “I have been told to tell you not to take use a professional camera.”

I smiled and replied “OK.”

At the end of the game, I would have taken 127 photos, but it was OK, I don’t get paid for any of the buggers.

I guess I was inside with a good forty-five minutes to go. There seemed to be many more obnoxious half-and-half scarves in the MHU than normal, and I feared the worst. I suspected an infiltration by you-know-who. Way atop our little section of seats, a father sat with his four-year-old son, who was wearing a Liverpool shirt under his jacket. I tut-tutted and tried to find someone else to be annoyed at. I didn’t take long. Sat behind me were four lads, two with half-and-halves, who seemed to be ignoring Chelsea’s pre-match kick-in down below us, instead focussing on the Liverpool players at The Shed End. By now Clive was alongside me, and we suggested to them that they were Liverpool fans. Their reply wasn’t in English, but they seemed to intimate that they were fans of football and soon dispersed. They must have had seats dotted all over the MHU.

The build-up to the match seemed to be rather low key in the stadium. The Liverpool fans were massed in the opposite corner, and one banner caught everyone’s attention.

IMAGINE BEING US.

Righty-oh.

The sun was out, but it was cold in the shadows. My light rain jacket kept out the chilly gusts.

By some odd twist of fate, forty years ago to the exact day, Chelsea were also pitted against Liverpool, but on that day in 1985 the match was at Anfield. More of that later.

The week before that game, on Saturday 27 April, Chelsea played Tottenham Hotspur at Stamford Bridge.

Let my 1984/85 retrospective recommence.

Chelsea vs. Tottenham Hotspur : 27 April 1985.

For all of the big names coming to play us in matches at Stamford Bridge in that return to the topflight, none was bigger than Tottenham. It was the one that was most-eagerly awaited of all. And yet the problems of that era contrived against us. After the near riot at the Chelsea vs. Sunderland Milk Cup semi final on 4 March, there was a full riot at the Luton Town vs. Millwall FA Cup tie on 13 March, and football hooliganism was the talk of the front and back pages. Considering the history of problems between the two teams, the league game with Tottenham was made all-ticket with an 11.30am kick-off.

The result of this, much to my complete sadness, was that this crunch match against our bitter rivals only drew a crowd of 26,310, a figure that I could hardly believe at the time.

Sigh.

I watched from the back row of the West Stand benches with my match day crew and took plenty of photos.

Before the game, as a celebration of our ninetieth birthday – admittedly a month and a half late – we were treated to some police dogs going through some manoeuvres on the pitch (how apt) but also the Red Devil parachute display team, and if I am not mistaken one of them managed to miss the pitch and end up on the West Stand roof. I am sure some wag wondered if the guilty parachutist was Alan Mayes. Some blue and white ballons were set off in front of the Tottenham fans and we all looked on in bewilderment.

“Let’s just get to the game.”

Ski-hats were all the rage in 1984/85 and one photo that I took of Alan, Dave, Rich and Leggo has done the rounds on many football sites over the years.

The match, in the end, wasn’t that special. Tottenham went ahead via Tony Galvin in the first half but a Pat Nevin free kick on seventy-five minutes gave us a share of the points.

A week later, the action took place two-hundred or so miles to the north.

Liverpool vs. Chelsea : 4 May 1984.

In 1984/1985, I only went to five away games due to finances, and the visit to Anfield was one of the highlights for sure. Liverpool were European Champions in 1984 and reigning League Champions too. They were in their pomp. Growing up as a child in the ‘seventies, and well before Chelsea fans grew tired of Liverpool’s cries of history, there were few stadia which enthralled me more than Anfield, with The Kop a beguiling wall of noise.

No gangways on The Kop, just bodies. A swaying mass of humanity.

Heading up to Liverpool, on an early-morning train from Stoke, I was excited and a little intimidated too. Catching a bus up to the stadium outside Lime Street was probably the nearest that I came to a footballing “rite of passage” in 1985. I was not conned into believing the media’s take that Scousers were loveable so-and-sos. I knew that Anfield could be a chilling away ground to visit. Famously, there was the “Cockneys Die” graffiti on the approach to Lime Street. My first real memory of Liverpool, the city, on that murky day forty years ago was that I was shocked to see so many shops with blinds, or rather metal shutters, to stave off robberies. It was the first time that I had seen such.

The mean streets of Liverpool? You bet.

I was deposited a few hundred yards from Anfield and took a few photos of the scene that greeted me. The local scallies – flared cords and Puma trainers by the look of it, all very 1985 – were prowling as I took a photograph of the old Kop.

Travelling around on trains during this season from my home in Stoke, I was well aware of the schism taking place in the casual subculture at the time. Sportswear was giving way to a more bohemian look in the north-west – flares were back in for a season or two, muted browns and greens, greys and blues, even tweed and corduroy flares – but this look never caught on in London.

At the time, I always maintained that it was like this :

London football – “look smart.”

Liverpool and Manchester football – “look different.”

I walked past The Kop and took a photo of the Kemlyn Road Stand, complete with newly arrived police horses. You can almost smell the gloom. Note the mast of the SS Great Eastern, which still hosts a fluttering flag on match days to this day.

The turnstiles were housed in a wall which had shards of glass on the top to deter fans from gaining free entry. Note the Chelsea supporters’ coach and the Sergio Tacchini top.

I paid my £2.50 and I was inside at 10.15am.

To complete this pictorial tour of Anfield before the game and to emphasise how bloody early I was on that Saturday morning – it was another 11.30am kick-off to deter excessive drinking and, ergo, hooliganism – there is a photograph of an empty, waiting, expectant Anfield. I guess that the photograph of the Chelsea squad in their suits was taken at an hour or so before kick-off. This is something we never see at games now; a Chelsea team inspecting the pitch before the game. I suspect that for many of the players, this would have been their first visit to Anfield too. Maybe that half-explains it.

My mate Glenn had travelled up with the Yeovil supporters coach for this game and we managed to find each other, and stand together, in the packed away segment at Anfield. My mates Alan, Paul and Swan stood close by. We were packed in like sardines on that terraced section of the Anfield Road that used to meet up with the Kemlyn Road, an odd mix of angles. Memorably, I remember that a lot of Chelsea lads – the firm, no doubt – had purchased seat tickets in the Anfield Road end, mere yards away from us, and a few punches were thrown. Even more memorably, I remember seeing a lad from Frome, Mark – a Liverpool supporter in my year at school – with two others from Frome only yards away in those very same seats.

The look we gave each other was priceless.

I see Mark at lots of Frome Town games to this day.

This was a cracking game. We went behind early on when Ronnie Whelan headed past Eddie Niedzwiecki and we soon conceded two more, both via Steve Nicol. We were 3-0 down after just ten minutes.

Welcome to Anfield.

We then played much better – my diary noted that it was the best we had played all season – and Nigel Spackman scored via a penalty at The Kop. Our fine play continued after the break, and Kerry Dixon slotted home in the six-yard box. Alas, a quick Liverpool break and a cross from their right. Ian Rush stuck out a leg to meet the ball at the near post and the ball looped over Niedzwiecki into the goal. My diary called it an exquisite finish and who am I to argue? I suppose, with hindsight, it was apt for Rush to score a goal at The Kop in my first ever game at Anfield. Writing these words forty years later, takes me right back. I can almost remember the gnawing inevitability of it.

Five minutes later, on about the sixty-fifth minute, Gordon Davies volleyed a low shot into the corner down below us.

Liverpool 4 Chelsea 3.

Wow.

We played so well in the remainder of the match but just couldn’t squeeze a fourth goal. We had outplayed them for a large part of the game. I remember being really surprised that Anfield was so quiet, and The Kop especially. Our little section seemed to be making all of the noise.

“EIO, EIO, EIO, EIO.”

“Ten Men Went To Mow.”

In that cramped, tight enclosure, this was a big moment in my life. I left Anfield exhausted, my throat sore, my brain fizzing with adrenalin, my senses heightened, drained.

We were all forced to take buses to Edge Hill, a train station a few miles out of Lime Street. Once there, I spotted a Chelsea lad that I recognised from Stoke, waiting with the rest of our mob, and preparing their next move, back into the city no doubt.

It took me forever to wait for a train that took me back to Crewe, where I needed to change for Stoke. I was, in fact, one of the last two Chelsea fans to leave Edge Hill that day.

These are some great memories of my first trip to Anfield.

Over the following forty years, I would return twenty-seven more times.

Back to 2025, and this was my fiftieth game against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge.

We lined up with a very strong formation, with the return of Romeo Lavia squeezing Moises Caicedo to right back and keeping Reece James on the bench.

Sanchez

Caicedo – Chalobah – Colwill – Cucurella

Lavia – Fernandez

Neto – Palmer – Madueke

Jackson

Liverpool were a mixture of familiar names and not-so-familiar names. I think I can name every single one of their 1985 squad, much less their 2025 version.

There were boos as both teams took to the pitch. I just stood silent with my hands in my pockets.

Within the first thirty seconds, or so it seemed, a pass from deep from Virgil Van Dijk set up Mo Salah. He attacked us from the right before attempting a low cross that was well gathered by Robert Sanchez.

This was a noisy Stamford Bridge, and the game had begun very lively. After just three minutes, we witnessed a beautiful move at pace. Romeo Lavia came away with the ball and slipped it through to Cole Palmer. The easy ball was chosen, outside to Pedro Neto. He advanced and I looked over to see Nicolas Jackson completely unmarked on the far post. However, after moving the ball on a few yards, Neto spotted the Lampardesque run of our current number eight and our Argentinian was able to kill the ball with his left foot and stroke it home with his right foot, past the diving Alisson, and Stamford Bridge went into orbit.

This was an open game, and Madueke’s shot whizzed past the post while Robert Sanchez saved well from Cody Gakpo.

Liverpool enjoyed a little spell around the fifteen-minute mark, but we were able to keep them at bay. I loved how Lavia and Caicedo were controlling the midfield. On twenty-three minutes, a magnificent sliding block from Trevoh Chalobah robbed Liverpool a shot on goal.

As the half-hour approached, I felt we were riding our luck a little as balls bounced into space from defensive blocks and clearances rather than at the feet of the opponents.

On thirty-one minutes, Noni Madueke played a one-two with Marc Cucurella, and his shot was inadvertently blocked by Jackson. The ball ran on to Caicedo, who dropped a lob onto the bar from the byline down near Parkyville.

On forty-one minutes, a snapshot from Neto hit the side netting. Just after, Jackson played in Madueke, who rounded Alisson to score, only for the goal to be chalked off for offside.

By now, the Liverpool lot, despite a flurry at the start, were quiet in their sunny corner of the stadium.

Liverpool did not seem to be creating as many threats as expected, and I was quietly confident at the break that we could hold on for a massive three points. I loved how Neto was playing, out wide, an old-fashioned winger, and Lavia, Caicedo and Enzo were a solid, fluid and combative three when we had the ball. Some of Jackson’s touches were, alas, woeful.

Into the second half, a magnificent burst from Madueke down in front of us – just a joy to watch – but a weak finish from that man Jackson. Just after, Nico slipped in the box. Just after, a fantastic dummy by Madueke out on the line, a little like Jadon Sancho at Palace, but he then gave the ball away cheaply.

Wingers are infuriating buggers, aren’t they?

At the other end, we watched a lovely old-fashioned tussle between Salah and Cucurella on the edge of our box.

Only one winner, there.

“He eats Paella, he drinks Estrella.”

On fifty-six minutes, Palmer shimmied into the right-hand side of the box and sent over a low cross towards Madueke. He touched the ball goalwards, but in the confusion that followed Van Dijk slashed at the ball and it ricocheted off Jarrell Quansah and into the goal, not that I had much of a clue what on Earth was going on. I just saw the net ripple.

It was an odd goal, in that nobody celebrated too quickly, as the spectre of VAR loomed over us all. The build-up to the goal included so many instances of potential VAR “moments” that I think it conditioned our thinking.

To our relief, no VAR, no delay, no problems.

But – VAR 1 Football 0.

Sigh.

Not to worry, we were up 2-0, and I had to ask the lads if they could remember the last time that we had beaten Liverpool in a league game at Stamford Bridge. Nobody could.

On the hour, Jackson worked himself into a great position but selfishly tried to poke the ball in from a very tight angle.

Liverpool, coming out of their shell now, enjoyed some chances. A great diving header from Levi Colwill denied them a shot on goal, and then they wasted a free header from a Salah cross.

On seventy minutes, another great slide from Our Trev denied them a shot. He was enjoying a magnificent game.

Another Liverpool header went wide.

This really was an open game.

On seventy-two minutes, Jadon Sancho replaced Nico, who is soon to enrol in the parachute regiment.

More Chelsea chances came and went. A shot from Madueke was blocked, a rasper from Sancho was saved well by Alisson, Palmer wriggled free and somehow hit the post from a ridiculously tight angle.

This was breathless stuff.

Another shot from Palmer, who looked rejuvenated.

“He wants it now.”

On seventy-eight minutes, Malo Gusto replaced Lavia, who had been a revelation.

On eighty-five minutes, a free header from Van Dijk, from an Alexis Mac Allister corner, and they were back in the game.

This caused our hearts to wobble, and as the game continued, we watched with increasing nervous concern. Just after, the next move, Palmer forced another save from Alisson, who was by far the busier ‘keeper.

A fine move, but Neto shot over.

On eighty-eight minutes, Reece James took over from Enzo, who had enjoyed another fantastic match.

The battle continued.

“COME ON CHELS.”

Six minutes of injury time was signalled.

Fackinell.

Not to worry, in the very final minute, Liverpool attempted to play the ball out from the back and Caicedo closed down and got to the ball just in front of a defender. The defender, however, got to Caicedo just before the ball.

Penalty.

Cole Palmer stroked it home, his first goal since January.

He ran towards the goal and turned towards the East Stand but I summoned up all of my psycho-kinetic powers to entice him over to us, under The Sleepy Hollow.

It worked.

Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap.

Just after, the final whistle.

Chelsea 3 Liverpool 1.

I spotted two of the four foreign lads sitting close by, full of smiles, and I felt I owed them an apology for thinking that they were Liverpool fans. I gave them the thumbs up. They reciprocated.

This was a lovely day and a lovely match, and perhaps the best performance of the season thus far. We bounced out of Stamford Bridge and I subconsciously found myself singing Chelsea songs on the stretch from the West Stand forecourt to the tube station, just like in the old times.

Tales From The Famous Chelsea

Posted on April 8, 2025 by Chris Axon

Chelsea vs. Tottenham Hotspur : 3 April 2025.

I am always the same. While sitting at my desk at work from 6am to 2pm, I was occasionally worried about the evening’s key Chelsea vs. Tottenham Hotspur match. No other fixture gets to me in quite the same fashion. No other game makes me as agitated.

I guess that it is all because of “The Run”; the run of fixtures at Stamford Bridge since late 1990 that has seen Chelsea only lose once against “that lot” from N17 in thirty-four home league games. Throw in an unbeaten five cup games at home and it comes to one defeat in thirty-nine matches.

It’s an unbelievable show of dominance of one topflight team over another. I have stated before that this must be the most one-sided record between two teams in any main league’s topflight over a thirty-five-year period.

Long may it continue, eh?

It had been eighteen ridiculously long days since our last game, a scratchy 1-0 win at home to Leicester City, and it felt great to be heading back along the M4 once again. It felt especially nice to have PD back alongside me after missing the last two games.

In that gap of eighteen games, my football obsession was satiated by attending five Frome Town matches.

Paulton Rovers vs. Frome Town : 18 March.

First up was a Somerset Premier Cup semi-final at nearby Paulton Rovers. This was a relatively easy 3-1 win in a fast and physical game against a team now two divisions below us after playing at the same level last season.

Basingstoke Town vs. Frome Town : 22 March.

I went with my mate Glenn to the league game at Basingstoke and met up with my Chelsea pal Leigh, from Basingstoke, in a local pub beforehand. On nearing Basingstoke, I admitted to Glenn that “I am glad I am seeing Frome play today and not Chelsea” and it felt like a seminal moment. It wasn’t a great game, but a James Ollis goal gave us a vital three points in our bid for survival.

Frome Town vs. Wimborne Town : 25 March.

Next up, was a run of three home league games. Unfortunately, the first of these was a very poor match in which last season’s bitter rivals Wimborne Town beat us 1-0. The, however, gate was a creditable 531.

Frome Town vs. Hungerford Town : 29 March.

A very decent crowd of 659 saw us lose 1-0 again, against Hungerford Town, in a game that was of slightly better quality than against Wimborne but our lack of firepower in front of the goal was again very telling. We were still mired in a relegation place.

Frome Town vs. Weston-super-Mare : 2 April.

Some respite came in the final of the Somerset Premier Cup, played at Bath City’s Twerton Park, against National League South outfit Weston-super-Mare. Our opponents played a young team, but despite several chances to score, we succumbed to yet another 1-0 loss. Our lack of goals has plagued us all season.

Talking of other games, we return to 1984/85, and the briefest of mentions of the next match in my forty-year retrospective. On Saturday 30 March 1985, Chelsea travelled to Roker Park for a league game against Sunderland. I didn’t travel to this, and I don’t think many Chelsea did. The gate was a miserly 13,489. This came not long after them defeating us in the Milk Cup semi-finals and I don’t think it exactly captured the imagination of the Chelsea support. It also came six days after Sunderland lost 1-0 to Norwich City in the final so I don’t think it captured the imagination of the home support either. However, we came away from the game with a nice 2-0 win with goals from Kerry Dixon and a Micky Thomas penalty.

After grabbing a tasty bite to eat at a café – “222” – on the North End Road, I flew down to “The Eight Bells” where I chatted with PD, Parky, Salisbury Steve, Jimmy the Greek and Ian inside the pub and my fellow Sleepy Hollow companion Clive – a first visit for him to our local – and his mate John on the tables outside.

During the day I had found out that the Fulham team changed in this pub when the team used to play at a local patch of land now occupied by Raneleigh Gardens. This would have been between 1886 and 1888. There’s football history everywhere in SW6 if you know where to look.

From this particular part of Fulham, we caught a tube up to the Broadway, and I was inside the stadium at 7.30pm.

The team?

We were so glad that both Cole Palmer and Nicolas Jackson had returned.

Sanchez

Gusto – Chalobah – Colwill – Cucurella

Caicedo – Fernandez

Neto – Palmer – Sancho

Jackson

I chuckled as the “Dug Out Club Wankers” were drenched by the pitch sprinklers as they made their ceremonial walk across the centre of the pitch before the game.

It was if George Anstiss was having one last laugh from above.

“Get orf my bleedin’ pitch.”

Nearing kick-off, we were treated to a bizarre song to warm us all up and get us in the mood for football.

“You Shook Me All Night Long” by ACDC.

Answers on a fucking postcard.

That ain’t Chelsea, it ain’t even football.

Thankfully, we were soon back to the much more suitable “London Calling” by The Clash.

Then the dimming of the lights, but thankfully no flames in front of the East Stand. As the teams appeared, The Shed was a riot of colour. In the top tier, many flags were waved, while a large banner was draped from the balcony.

THE FAMOUS CHELSEA

Back in the ‘eighties, The Shed used to bellow “we are the famous, the famous Chelsea” but that seems to have died a death since then. The Geordies, however, still chant something similar to this day.

My mate Rob had appeared next to me just as the huge banner was beginning to be displayed and had sagely commented :

“You watch it unravel.”

I wondered if this might prove to be a worrying metaphor for, perhaps, the game ahead.

Meanwhile, down in the Matthew Harding Lower a huge – new – crowd surfer flag depicted The Rising Sun and Gus Mears.

This was a nice homage at both ends of the stadium for “CFC 120” as the club has termed it.

There was a change from the usual “Liquidator” by the Harry J All Stars with a perfectly timed incision of “Blue Is The Colour” into the pre-match routine leading right up to kick-off. I loved it that the crowd continued singing once the song had been forced into early retirement by the start of the match.

“So cheer us on through the sun and the rain ‘cus Chelsea, Chelsea is our name.”

And what a start.

From the whistle, the noise was deafening, the best of the season by far, and the returning striker Jackson almost caused immediate joy. Put through by Trevoh Chalobah, he raced on and found himself one-on-one with Guglielmo Vicario. There was a prod at goal, saved, but a crazy passage of play saw Micky Van de Ven attempt to clear, but the ball was hacked against Jackson’s shin. Our pulses were racing here, but sadly we saw the ball ricochet back off the right-hand post. There would be no celebrations in front of Parkyville just yet.

On six minutes, Marc Cucurella to Malo Gusto but just wide. That shot is featured here.

In the first quarter of an hour, I was very happy to see a far greater level of intensity and a much better desire to release the ball early, especially compared to the bore-fest at Arsenal.

Simply put, the threat of a pacey Jackson made all the difference since we now had a focus of our attack. On the right, Pedro Neto was also able to concentrate on his wing duties rather than ponce around in the middle and lose his way.

On eighteen minutes, a nice move twixt Jadon Sancho and Palmer on the left and there was a mad scramble in the Tottenham six-yard box, but Vicario was able to block virtually on the line.

There was a delightful turn / shimmy / dragback from Sancho that set up Palmer but the ball went out for a corner.

Dogged play from Jackson on twenty-eight minutes, hounding his defender, but a shot was blazed over.

By the half-hour mark, we were well on top, with Tottenham only threatening sporadically, mainly through Son Heing-min and Lucas Bergvall. Sancho showed lots of skill in tight areas but there was an infuriating reluctance to shoot. On the visitors’ rare breaks inside our final third, I loved the way that our players flung themselves at the ball to block. This showed spirit and character, and long may it thrive.

A lovely move on forty-four minutes resulted in a deep Neto cross from the right which was nicely met by Sancho. His wicked shot was on target but was incredibly well tipped over by Vicario.

At the other end, Robert Sanchez had been so quiet.

As the first half ended, we were happy, and there was a lovely sound of applause from the home areas.

In the concourse at the break, I spotted a chap with a River Plate shirt and I tapped him on the shoulder and could not resist the word “Boca” and a smile, but I wish, now, that I had stopped and asked if he was an Enzo fan.

Because everything was about to change.

After an early shot on goal from Palmer that tested Vicario again, the ball found its way to the feet of our talisman from Mancunia. I snapped as he eyed up the opportunity to cross.

His ball into the danger area was absolute perfection.

This felt right.

With my camera still poised, I snapped as Enzo – ex-River Plate – rose and planted the ball home.

MY ENZO.

GET IN.

The stadium exploded.

I was boiling over but shot a load of photos as the Argentinian raced towards us.

Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap,snap.

Enzo was hidden, submerged, for a few seconds, and I love the ecstasy on the face of players and supporters alike.

There had been a worry in the pub beforehand that without many local lads in our squad, the importance of this game against this opponent would be lost.

We need not have worried.

I looked at Alan.

We both smiled.

Paul Hogan : “They’ll have to come at us now.”

Barry Humphries : “Come on my little diamonds.”

Just after, Enzo attempted a very ambitious bicycle kick just past the penalty spot.

“Easy tiger.”

Two minutes after, the ball came out to the excellent Moises Caicedo from an Enzo free-kick, and he lashed it home.

The place erupted again, and I found it difficult to focus my camera on the melee in the far corner as the North Stand was moving so much.

Alas, VAR.

Alas, no goal.

Alas, a hairline offside from Levi Colwill.

Alas, the game we love is being strangled.

On sixty-three minutes, a massively wide effort from Neto, the ball curling out around ten yards from the corner flag in front of the West Stand.

Fackinell.

Tottenham went close on sixty-five minutes.

A substitution : Noni Madueke for Sancho.

Then, on sixty-nine minutes, Pape Matar Sarr broke and smashed a low drive from around thirty-five yards along the ground and seemingly at Sanchez. Our ‘keeper, maybe thinking about his post-match meal, his summer holiday, a long-lost unrequited love from his early years, or how the Matthew Harding roof stays up, wasn’t with it and his despairing dive only resulted in the ball deflecting high and into the roof of the net.

Bollocks.

Thankfully, a foul on Caicedo was spotted.

VAR.

A ridiculously long wait.

And I hate it how players from both teams were allowed to stand so close to referee Craig Pawson as he studied the pitch-side TV screen.

In such circumstances, the players should be corralled within the centre-circle.

Right?

Anyway, no goal.

Alan and I remained still and silent.

I don’t cheer VAR decisions in our favour.

Fuck VAR.

However, the noise levels increased.

“This is more like it.”

I loved how Enzo twisted and turned down below me in the box, despite running out of space. His was a really fine performance on this night.

Vicario then saved from that man Enzo.

Another substitution : Reece James for Jackson.

Over on the far touchline, manager Maresca seemed to be getting the crowd in the East Lower pumped up. I noted that he was wearing a tangerine sweatshirt under his jacket, and it immediately brought memories of those orange sweatshirts that the players used to wear during their “kicking in” before games in the ‘seventies.

Twelve minutes of injury time.

Gulp.

Two more substitutions : Keirnan Dewsbury-Hall for Enzo, Tosin Adarabioyo for Palmer.

I whispered to Alan : “anything could happen here, mate.”

The clock ticked…

I loved it when Dewsbury-Hall made two crunching tackles and after both his teammates raced over to “high-five” him.

Great team spirit.

The noise boomed.

To “Amazing Grace” :

“CHELSEA – CHELSEA – CHELSEA – CHELSEA – CHELSEA – CHELSEA – CHELSEA.”

In the very last minute, however, our nerves were sorely tested as Tottenham broke rapidly. Dominic Solanke – who? – played the ball to Brennan Johnson who crossed low towards Son at the far post. He slid and poked it goalwards, but Sanchez – I take it all back – made a remarkable recovery to move to his right and block the goal-bound effort.

Phew.

It was an absolutely magnificent save.

Soon after, the final whistle blew.

Thankfully, the famous Chelsea Football Club didn’t unravel.

Not this time.