Chelsea vs. Barrow : 24 September 2024.

The game against Barrow in the League Cup was the first of four home matches at Stamford Bridge in just thirteen days. Not wishing to denigrate this competition, but it is probably the last of our priorities this season. I know that the Europa Conference is – well – the Europa Conference, but it offers European, and Central Asian, travel, and it is a UEFA competition after all. The League Cup – or whatever name it gives itself these days – is familiar to us, whereas the Europa Conference is something different. Should we win it this season – our UEFA coefficient alone suggests we might – then maybe it would go back down the pecking order until UEFA invents yet another competition for also-rans across Europe.

There is a competition, though, that is well down my list of priorities this season for Chelsea Football Club. The English Football League Trophy is a cup that began life as the Associate Members Cup in 1983/84, and it had a number of sponsors over the years. It was the Freight Rover, it was the Leyland DAF, it was the Auto Windscreens, it was all sorts. It was once the Johnstone Paint Trophy, the one that Southampton sang about us not winning.

The English Football League Trophy is a competition for clubs in the two divisions of the English Football League. The name rather gives this away, right? But, it’s not. Since 2016/17, sixteen U21 teams from the Premiership and the Championship have been invited to take part too. There was an initial backlash against this, since it could stop smaller clubs from enjoying a day out at Wembley, and I agreed wholeheartedly with this statement. I decided to boycott the tournament even if it meant not seeing a Chelsea team at local stadia such as Forest Green Rovers, Exeter City and Bristol Rovers. Would I go to the final at Wembley if Chelsea U21s were to reach it? No.

I am just dead against the notion of U21 teams being in this competition.

That said, I did find it ridiculous that Chelsea were playing Barrow in the League Cup on the very same evening that Chelsea U21s were at Bromley in the English Football League Trophy. I knew of many Chelsea mates who were going to Bromley – “new ground” – rather than attend the first team match at Stamford Bridge, yet how easy could it have been to plan these two games on different nights? Surely, Chelsea could have played Barrow last week. It’s not as if the team from the Cumbrian coast were playing European football.

Sometimes modern football does not make any sense at all.

I was up at 4.45am and worked a 6am to 2pm shift. I set off for London with just PD and Parky. When I drove past Junction 14 of the M4 and saw the signs for the nearby town of Hungerford, another football competition flitted into my mind. Later that evening, my local team Frome Town would visit Hungerford Town in a league game. It was a match that I would have attended had it not been for the game at Stamford Bridge. At the weekend, Hungerford beat Plymouth Parkway 9-3 at home, while Frome Town lost 0-5 at Havant & Waterlooville. I would be girding my loins for score updates as the evening wore on. In a nutshell, I was far from hopeful.

We landed in London at 5pm, and I shot off to get some food down my neck. The “Efes” restaurant – Turkish – on the corner of Lillee Road and the North End Road has been garnering some decent reviews of late so I gave it a shot. While I leisurely ate a lamb shish kebab plus the usual garnishes, I spotted plenty of Chelsea fans in the restaurant and three sets of parents with children.

PD soon called.

“McGettigans is closed. We’re at ‘Simmons’ and it’s £4 a pint.”

I slowly walked down the North End Road, but despite a couple of coffees on the drive to London, I was feeling so tired, so groggy. I decided to dip into “Café Ole”- close to the pie and mash shop in 1984 – and downed a cappuccino with a double-shot. I was soon buzzing. Phew.

This place has served as the “Memory Lane Café” in past match reports, so let’s use it again. Forty years ago, my mind was focussed on beginning a new life in Stoke-on-Trent as a human geography undergraduate at North Staffs Poly. I had buggered up my “A Levels” in June 1983, re-took them in November 1983, and managed to get a place at Stoke. When Chelsea played at Luton Town in a Division One fixture on Saturday 22 September 1984, I was at home in Somerset, recuperating after a heavy session in Frome the night before when I gathered together a few friends as they gave me a boozy send-off. My parents would drive me up to Staffordshire on the Sunday.

My diary reiterates my memories of that night. I was being bought drinks right, left and centre and when I reached home, I fell out of the car. Oh, I had bumped into Glenn – now sporting a perm – who told me that he was off to Luton on the Saturday. My diary tells me that I got up late on the Saturday, much the worse for wear, and that although I listened to Radio 2 all afternoon, there was no score update from Kenilworth Road until the end of the game.

It ended 0-0, as did I if my memory is correct.

I crossed the road and joined PD and Parky at the high tables in “Simmons” which has been given a bit of a makeover since our last visit. There is more space, more neon, a better feel. I said a quick hello to “Mr. Pink” – Chris always wears a lucky pink polo at away games – but the place was generally quiet, nothing like it used to be on midweek games a few years back. I like it though. It’s convenient. For some reason, blue and white balloons were dotted around the bar. Were the owners secret Nkunku fans?

Outside, the weather was dry but muggy. At the end of Fulham Broadway, an electronic sign helpfully stated “Please Keep To Your Left Our Right” and I thought “thanks for that, big help, I was going to tunnel beneath it.”

I was inside at about 7.15pm for the 7.45pm kick-off.

Barrow, eh?

It takes me right back, way back to around 1970 or 1971, just as I was starting to watch football on TV and learn more and more about the game, the players, the teams, the league tables. I can distinctly remember poring over the league tables of my grandfather’s Sunday Express and examining all of the various football teams that plied their trade in the four divisions of the Football League. Some of the names used to fill me with wonder and a desire to learn about them, especially all those that were unfamiliar to me as a Chelsea fan, used to hearing only about the bigger teams in the First Division. I found some of the names beguiling.

Crewe Alexandra.

Sheffield Wednesday.

Aston Villa.

Port Vale.

Halifax Town.

Workington.

Southport.

Stockport County.

Barrow.

Chester.

Chesterfield.

Rochdale.

Bury.

I wondered where all these places were. Were they all up north? These were all new to me. Ironically, Barrow were relegated out of the Football League – or rather voted out – at the end of the 1971/72 season and I can distinctly remember this taking place. They would not return to the Football League again until 2021.

PD and I were sat together in The Sleepy Hollow. Being both a Bromley and a Chelsea season ticket holder, there was no surprises as to where Alan was.

It looked a pretty healthy crowd for hardly a game with much of a “pull”. Stamford Bridge wasn’t full but it wasn’t far off. Around 2,500 away fans had travelled down from Barrow-in-Furness. Ironically, we know a loyal Chelsea fan – hello Gary – who lives in Barrow yet still travels down to Chelsea as a season ticket holder. It’s a solid six-hour drive.

Us?

Jorgensen

Gusto – Disasi – Badiashile – Veiga

Casadei – Dewsbury-Hall

Neto – Felix – Mudryk

Nkunku

It was Cesare Casadei’s first start.

Barrow were in waspish yellow and black hoops, though I immediately felt it strange that the referee was in all black, since – from the rear – the Barrow players were in all black too. Very odd.

To their credit, the away team began the livelier.

With our attacking options though, it did not surprise anyone when we went ahead on just eight minutes. Renato Veiga slammed a ball towards Joao Felix who adroitly flicked the ball over some dawdling defenders for Christopher Nkunku to drill the ball home.

Chelsea 1 Barrow 0.

The players celebrated in front of Parkyville.

There was an attack from Barrow, and a shot was slammed over, but Chelsea continued to dominate. On fifteen minutes, a neat flick from Pedro Neto set up Malo Gusto. I shouted out some advice to him – keep it high – but he chose to ignore me and he drilled a low ball towards Nkunku at the near post. It was too far away for me to truly admire the finish, but the ball ended up in the back of the net.

Chelsea 2 Barrow 0.

“Nice to see Gusto took my advice, PD.”

PD laughed.

It was the equivalent of me falling out of my father’s car forty years ago.

Chelsea continued in the ascendency and Barrow’s focus now seemed to involve sitting back and trying to limit further damage. There was one blistering run from Mykhailo Mudryk down the left, but he again promised much, but delivered little.

On the half-hour mark, Gusto was upended centrally. My immediate reaction was that the free-kick was too central. PD agreed.

“We need Zola here.”

I need not have worried. Felix waited until the wall was set – much buggering about from both sets of players and the referee – and then dipped a floater over and around the western edges of Barrow’s wall and we watched as the ball cannoned in off the post, but off the Barrow ‘keeper too.

I lept to my feet, but many stayed sat. How odd.

Chelsea 3 Barrow 0.

The rest of the first half didn’t result in anyone rising to their feet, apart from those going off to the loos. Caicedei looked solid, though was reticent to turn, and always seemed to choose the soft option of a backward pass. No doubt the stats men loved it. All of this backward passing makes for a hideously dull form of football though.

There was a shot from the much-derided Benoit Badiashile, but that was about it.

At the break, my focus was away from Stamford Bridge. In other games, Bromley were losing 1-2 and it was 0-0 at Hungerford.

Enzo Maresca replaced Gusto with Ben Chilwell – welcome back, Chilly – with the defence shifting around to accommodate him. A header from Dewsbury-Hall did not threaten the Barrow goal.

On forty-eight minutes, Nkunku played in a raiding Mudryk and we all wondered what would happen. Thankfully he didn’t trip, nor sky a shot over the bar, but he played the ball intelligently square to Neto who steadily turned the ball in.

Chelsea 4 Barrow 0.

I am sure that more people stood for that one.

We often had a spare man down below us, and that man was usually Mudryk. He sprinted ahead and set up Dewsbury-Hall, but his shot was saved well by the Barrow ‘keeper.

It annoyed me to hear the MHL, presumably full of a vastly different set of fans than usual for this game, to take the piss out of the Barrow ‘keeper as he took goal kicks in this second-half. In fact, the “Ooooooooooooooooh! You’re shit! Aaaaaarrrrrgggggh!” has not been heard at Chelsea since, probably, the late ‘eighties. Come on, we were playing Barrow, not a London rival.

I said to Anna “I’m surprised the idiots in the MHL aren’t taking the piss out of Barrow for not winning the Champions League.”

For the purists, I always remembered it as a plain “Ooooooooh, you’re shit!” at Chelsea. Other teams’ supporters extended it. There, that’s told you.

Down at the other end, a dipping free-kick was well saved by the scrambling Filip Jorgensen at the near post.

The away fans were making lots of noise, as expected. This was their biggest away game for a while.

“You’ve seen the Barrow, now fuck off home” was the only chant I could decipher, though.

Just after the hour, a double substitution.

Josh Acheampong for Disasi.

Tyrique George for Neto.

This was my first sighting of the young winger. After a little Barrow spell, George was presented with a golden chance to mark his Stamford Bridge debut with a goal, but he rolled a shot well wide of the far post.

With a quarter of an hour to go, the Barrow ‘keeper dawdled and was pick-pocketed by Nkunku and steered the ball into an empty net. The French striker, who offers a different skill-set to Nicolas Jackson, thus gained a well-deserved hat-trick. Alas, no money shot this week; I couldn’t focus my camera in time for his blue balloon celebration.

Just after, more changes.

Carney Chukwuemeka for the excellent Joao Felix.

Marc Guiu for the clinical Nkunku.

There were a couple of late chances, including a good strike from Carney, but as the final whistle beckoned, my football focus soon switched from London SW6 to Berkshire.

In Hungerford, it was still 0-0.

Come on Frome!

Meanwhile, over in Bromley, the Chelsea U21s narrowly squeaked it 3-2 with Harvey Vale getting two.

At the end of the match, I made a quick getaway and strode purposefully down the Fulham Road. I kept checking the Frome score on my ‘phone which had dramatically dwindled down to 2% and then 1% charge.

85 minutes : 0-0.

90 minutes : 0-0.

96 minutes : 0-0.

98 minutes : 0-0

With that, the final score of 0-0 flashed up and my ‘phone died.

I smiled.

“GET IN.”

It wrapped-up a decent night out. We ran through the options of a preferred opponent in the next round. With a nod to 1984, I fancied Stoke City away.

I didn’t stop on the way home; I left Normand Road at 10.02pm and I pulled up at my house at 12.06am. Two hours and four minutes. A record surely?

Next up, Brighton at home.

See you in the pub.

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