“Climbing up on Solsbury Hill I could see the city light. Wind was blowing, time stood still. Eagle flew out of the night.”
It was just before 7.45pm on Wednesday 17 April and the PA at Larkhall Athletic’s picturesque Plain Ham ground, high on a hill, surrounded by narrow lanes, played Peter Gabriel’s 1977 debut single. It heralded the appearance of the home team and their visitors Frome Town for the evening’s local derby. This was all very apt since Solsbury Hill is just visible beyond the northern side of the ground now that a line of trees has been cut down since my last visit.
Fresh with memories of Chelsea’s fine 6-0 against an admittedly poor Everton team, I had assembled alongside a healthy turn out of Frome followers to urge the team on towards another three points in the quest for promotion to the Southern League Premier South. But this was a nervy occasion. Frome added to the worry by conceding a cheap goal after just three minutes and did not really get going in a disjointed first-half. Substitutions were made as the second-half progressed and, thankfully, we looked a lot more efficient and purposeful. We threatened with a few pacey attacks. Thankfully, stalwart Matt Smith – out for eighteen months until very recently – smashed home a late leveller. Frome could have edged it in the very last move of the match but James Ollis’ stooping header just missed the target.
The draw was a fair result, but the worry was that with just two regular season games left, Frome were looking leggy and tired. On Saturday 20 April, on the day that Chelsea were to play Manchester City at Wembley in the FA Cup semi-final, Frome would travel to Wimborne in a top-two clash. The fixture had captured the imagination of the Frome faithful and large numbers were to travel.
However, I had the FA Cup on my mind. It would undoubtedly be my focus for the weekend.
Then, on the Thursday, the FA upset the apple cart. News filtered through concerning the atrocious decision of FA Cup replays from the first-round being scrapped from next season, apparently after precious little consultation with clubs in the FA umbrella. This annoyed me and so many others. It seemed to me that the Football Association make so much noise about diversity and inclusiveness, but this announcement suggested that the World’s greatest and most revered national knockout competition is increasingly geared towards the moneyed elite only.
This decision will help to kill the romance of the cup – “if only we can scrape a draw and get them back to our place” – to say nothing of the horrible effect on vanishing revenues. Additionally, the FA in their infinite wisdom announced that the final would not be played on a stand-alone weekend as a season finale. It all reeks of looking after the top clubs at the expense of all others. Another nail in the coffin for the once magnificent FA Cup? It certainly seems like it.
Which brings us to another reason why the FA Cup has been on a downward spiral for a couple of decades now. Our semi against City would be at Wembley, and I hate this. Wembley should be saved for finals alone. I don’t care one iota about the oft-spoken but embarrassingly mumbled words from the FA about getting more fans to see the semi-finals, the move to Wembley is all about money and nothing more.
Chelsea vs. Manchester City? Play it at Old Trafford, capacity 74,300.
Coventry City vs. Manchester United? Play it at Cardiff, capacity 74,500.
Semis at neutral venues used to be fine occasions. Chelsea in the Holte End at Villa Park in 1996 and in the North Bank at Highbury in 1997? Bloody fantastic times.
It’s hard to believe that the same sport, under the auspices of the Football Association, can induce such a difference in emotions, with different feelings of belonging, at the two levels that I actively support it; Chelsea in the Premier League, Frome Town in the Southern League South. It is a modern-day football conundrum and I am not sure that I have the patience to solve it.
However, certainly at the professional level, the FA know Fuck All – sweet FA, sweet Fanny Adams – about what makes football special. I would not trust them to do anything in our interests. But the same could be said of UEFA and FIFA. I dislike them all with a passion.
Despite all of this nonsense, Saturday 20 April was set up to be some sort of footballing day of destiny for me, and it seems that we have had a few of those over the years. I collected PD at 8am, I collected Parky at 8.30am. The plan, though not solidified, was to meet up with some friends as the day got going. However, the day in London was always going to start with a fry-up at “The Half-Moon Café” on the Fulham Palace Road at around 10.30am. We arrived on the dot. Despite a very tasty breakfast – bacon, egg, baked beans, black pudding, bubble and squeak, two rounds of toast, a mug of strong tea, £8.40 – in the back of my mind was the gnawing realisation that a breakfast in the “Half Moon” equated to a Wembley defeat, dating back a few years now. It’s a tough habit to break, though.
I was parked-up at Barons Court at around 11am and we made our way to Earls Court for 11.15am. Salisbury Steve was further north at Edgware Road and wisely decided not to double back to Earls Court. We strode into “The Blackbird” – not an unfamiliar pub to us – and I got the first round in, but was shocked to see that a single pint of “Peroni” was £7.45, probably the dearest I have ever paid in the UK.
We were joined by friends from Columbus in Ohio; Andrew, Steve, Neil and Adrian. This was a first visit to England for Adrian. I made sure he realised how lucky he was to get a ticket for this game. We trotted around the corner to “The King’s Head” which only I had visited previously. We stayed here – we had the whole place to ourselves for the first half-an-hour – for a couple of hours. We had a lovely chuckle. It’s a great pub.
Originally, this weekend was geared up for a Brighton away game and Steve, who is getting married in September, was using the weekend as his “stag do”; we had been invited along. Due to our progress in the FA Cup, those plans took a hammering. But here we were. I noted what was playing on the jukebox; Paul Weller’s “Wildwood.”
“Raise your glasses boys. Here we are in a London pub. Off to Wembley to see Chelsea, four of you for the first time. Paul Weller on the juke box. Life is good.”
Steve told a great story. He knew that PD and I had heart issues over the past few years and so he spoke of a friend who had had a heart scare and was now looped up to a heart monitor. He was sitting at home one evening, alone. All of a sudden he hears “beep” and he is immediately worried. After a few seconds, another “beep”. He had been told that if he has a heart attack, to brace himself, so – fearing the worst – he gripped a nearby chair. Another “beep” and then another.
“Beep.”
“Beep.”
He then realised that it was his young child’s electronic toy beeping as its battery was low.
Fackinell.
Oh God, we were howling.
We caught a tube up to Marylebone, changing at Paddington, and we made a bee-line for “The Allsop Arms” where we knew some mates were based, with not much of a line at the bar. We stayed here from about 2.30pm to 3.45pm. From 3pm, I was wired into Frome Town and Wimborne Town’s “Twitter” accounts, bracing myself for good – or bad – news.
Beep.
“Matt Smith and George Rigg recalled.”
Beep.
“A cagey opening.”
Beep.
“No goals at half-time.”
We made our way up to Marylebone, catching the 4.15pm train to Wembley Stadium.
While on the ten-minute train journey, my mate Francis texted me.
Beep.
“One mother-fucking-nil to The Dodge.”
Oh you absolute beauty. The lads alongside me were pleased too. On the packed train, there were plenty of Chelsea chants but one song dominated.
“We’re gonna have a party when Arsenal fuck it up.”
I sang different lyrics.
“We’re gonna have a party when Wimborne fuck it up.”
Sadly, as I was walking up towards Wembley Stadium train station, Francis texted again.
Beep.
“They’ve equalised.”
Beep.
“Gate 2,307.”
This stunned me. What an amazing attendance for a level eight game.
As I found my seats in the top tier of the south-west corner at 4.50pm, one last text.
Beep.
“Final score.”
It was time to fully focus on Chelsea now.
The team was announced.
Petrovic
Gusto – Silva – Chalobah – Cucarella
Caicedo – Enzo
Madueke – Palmer – Gallagher
Jackson
So, the cool head and the cool feet of Thiago Silva got the nod over other options – despite Axel Diasi’s masterclass of a defensive performance at Manchester City a few months back – and the manager had chosen to play Conor Gallagher wide left. Raheem Sterling’s absence spoke volumes.
City? Erling Haaland wasn’t playing; not even on the bench. Good.
Kick-off approached. A City song – seemingly stuck in the mid-‘seventies – was aired on the PA and there was no singalong from them. Instead a loud and proud “Carefree” drowned it out. This, of course, pleased me. On every visit to Wembley, I make mental notes about the vocal performance of the two competing teams.
Advantage us.
Our song, “Blue Day”, was cheered.
Two displays took over the two ends of the stadium. Our mosaic looked a bit patchy, their banner looked decent.
In the West End :
“WE ARE THE FAMOUS. THE FAMOUS CHELSEA.”
“OUR BLOOD IS BLUE AND WE WILL LEAVE YOU NEVER.”
In the East End :
“THE BEST TEAM IN THE LAND AND ALL THE WORLD.”
“CITY ARE BACK. CITY ARE BACK.”
I wondered if City were stickering up that end in preparation for the United fans who would be occupying the same seats on the Sunday. There were inflatable bananas, how 1989, bouncing around in City’s lower tier. There were empty seats in both ends but many more in the City end.
At 5.15pm, the game began.
We probably started the strongest with Gallagher breaking past his last man, Kyle Walker, a couple of times and Nicolas Jackson wriggling free with his pace but shooting at Stefan Ortega. There was a long-range effort from Cole Palmer but it was not nearly as well executed as against Everton a few days earlier.
Phil Foden was set up by Kevin de Bruyne with a fine through-ball but the City urchin was thankfully forced wide and the covering Marc Cucarella, enjoying a really fine first twenty minutes, headed the ball away.
Before the game I had been quietly confident of us doing well and as the first-half developed I was more than happy with our play.
Just before the half-hour, the loudest chant of the evening thus far :
“And its Super Chelsea. Super Chelsea FC. We’re by far the greatest team, the world has ever seen.”
Good stuff.
At around that time, in a quiet moment, I heard the City lot sing “Blue Moon” but that was honestly the only time I can remember hearing from them until very late in the game.
Enzo Fernandez had begun so quietly that I had forgotten that he was on the pitch. However, another quick break ensued when he played in Jackson. His touch took him too far to the left and he could not get a shot in. In the end, the promising move fizzled out when his cross across the box was hacked away.
Groans.
However, our support remained at decent levels. On thirty-seven minutes, the whole end got together in a bone crushing “Amazing Grace.”
“Chelsea – Chelsea – Chelsea – Chelsea – Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea.”
Stirring stuff.
We were surely winning the fight between the two sets of fans.
The mercurial Palmer had been linking up well with Noni Madueke and also the dependable Malo Gusto. Our right flank was looking strong. A shot from Madueke was blocked by John Stones.
Then, Palmer found himself in a little space inside the box after a fine move involving Trevoh Chalobah but his shot at goal was weak and at the ‘keeper.
Bar a few defensive errors, and a couple of Manchester City efforts, we had played well. City, after their Champions League exit on Wednesday, were looking tired. We just needed to be a little more confident and to run at spaces a little more. I chatted a little to the bloke behind me. We both admitted that although Nicolas Jackson is far – very far – from the finished article, he is a handful and has shown glimpses.
Glimpses. That word again.
A couple of old-school football tunes were aired at the start of the half-time break.
“Blue Monday” from 1983 – Manchester City?
“A Town Called Malice” from 1982 – Chelsea? Certainly Frome Town.
But then this normality came to a crushing standstill when a constantly smiling DJ played a set down to my left in front of the Chelsea supporters. Dance music boomed out – I recognised Rozalla and “Everybody’s Free (To Feel Good) from 1991 and the inevitable “Insomnia” by Faithless from 1995 – but this just seemed to be a ridiculous addition to a football match.
Oh well, at least she seemed to be enjoying herself.
The second-half began with our team attacking us.
Very soon into the restart, Jackson was presented with two excellent chances to score. Gallagher stayed strong and played him in. He ran in centrally and I am sure we all felt that a goal was possible. Alas, his low shot was too near the City ‘keeper and the chance passed. However, from the same move, Palmer chipped the ball into the six-yard box and the stooping Jackson headed the ball down but straight at Ortega.
Fackinell.
On the hour, a super-loud version of “Super Chelsea.”
Music to my lug-holes.
A free-kick to Chelsea about thirty yards out made me wonder if Palmer would go for goal. Indeed, he decided to shoot. The ball struck the wall and flew off for a corner. But wait, there was a VAR check for a handball, which surprised me.
No penalty, but – baffling – no corner either.
Jack Grealish danced inside the box and rolled the ball to Foden. A low shot was nicely kept out by Petrovic, who had not really been tested too much until then.
Doku, on for Grealish, was given far too much time as he advanced. He shot at an angle but Petrovic hacked it away.
I was stood, many were stood. I had been stood the whole match in fact. The game got older, nerves tightened.
Some substitutions.
Axel Disasi for the injured Gusto.
Mykhailo Mudryk for the tiring Madueke.
De Bruyne blazed a shot wide. He had had a stinker.
On eighty-four minutes, Doku was again given far too much space – “get closer!” – and he found De Bruyne. His cross was pushed out by Petrovic at the near post but the ball fell agonisingly for Bernardo Silva to smash home.
Bollocks.
Immediate thoughts of Virgil Van Dyke scoring one just two minutes from time at the same goal in late February.
Sigh.
Now the City fans could be heard.
Ben Chilwell for Cucarella, probably my player of the match.
Raheem Sterling for Enzo, another disappointing performance from him.
We chased the game, eight minutes of extra time were to be played, and I absolutely loved the fact that virtually no Chelsea supporters left before the final whistle. There were a few raids on the City defence, but our attempts ran out of fizz.
To sum up our lack-lustre end to the game, and with just seconds remaining but with virtually everybody bar Petrovic up, Mudryk floated a free kick from down below us over everybody and the ball embarrassingly went off for a goal-kick.
After the defeat at Wembley on Sunday, we reconvened down at “The Eight Bells” in deepest Fulham – via a pint at “The Sawyers Arms” at Paddington – and although our spirits were low, a decent evening ensued. We spent three hours or so in the company of Johnny Twelve from California and also Rob and Karl from Hersham. Suffice to say, the drinks flowed and the smiles returned. However, on waking in the Premier Inn opposite the pub the next morning, I could not stifle a brief “I hate football” from flitting into my head.
But these were a busy few days for Chelsea Football Club.
Next up was our first FA Cup tie against Leeds United since the 1970 FA Cup Final and subsequent replay. It was a busy time for me too. As Monday passed and as I toiled over the Wembley blog late into Tuesday, I managed to “let go” of the result on Sunday and I tried my best to look forward to the game on Wednesday.
I was in early at work on the day of the game, but I could not get something out of my head. Back in 1986, Chelsea exited both domestic cups within the space of four days; we lost at home to Liverpool in the FA Cup on Sunday 26 January and at home to QPR on Wednesday 29 January. I sincerely hoped that there would be no repeat thirty-eight years later.
PD and Parky had enjoyed a pub lunch and PD had then picked-up Ron Harris at 1.45pm. At just after 2pm, in the car park of “The Milk Churn” pub in Melksham, I stood with Ron as PD took a photo of the two of us. It seemed right that on the occasion of the first Chelsea vs. Leeds United FA Cup game in fifty-four years, we should mark the start of the drive to Chelsea in this manner.
As I pulled out of the car park, I realised once again how absolutely lucky I am to be able to drive our captain from those glory years up to Stamford Bridge.
1970, eh?
While Ron was busy leading the team to those two classic games, I was just starting out on a football life of my own.
I began my school days at the age of for years and nine months, probably just before the Wembley Cup Final on Saturday 11 April. In the ensuing few months, I would choose Chelsea as my team, although the exact reason or reasons are not crystal clear. In my memory, it’s down to a list of a few motives. It has to be said that until school, my parents told me that I wasn’t particularly interested in football.
Maybe I liked the name “Chelsea”. Maybe, after the replay at Old Trafford on 29 April, some school pals told me that “Chelsea had won the cup” (there is no recollection at all of me watching it, sadly) or maybe I had worked out that Chelsea were a good team. In a nutshell, Chelsea were the talk of the town, or at least the school playground, in the April and May of 1970 and I became a fan.
I’ve had quite a journey, eh?
And here I was, aged fifty-eight and seven months, driving the captain of that team to a game against Leeds United so many years later.
As I approached London, I could not resist asking Ron a question.
“Ron. Of the two games at Wembley and Old Trafford in 1970, what is your one stand out memory?”
“After the first game, Dave Sexton told me that I would swap positions with Webby, who had been given the biggest run-around I had ever seen by Eddie Gray, and in the second-game he never got a kick.”
The response did not surprise me at all. It is the classic moment from both games aside from the goals.
The 1970 FA Cup Final is so iconic, so fantastic, and so important to the history of the competition and to Chelsea Football Club alike. But it is, undoubtedly, so important for me too, although I did not even watch the games at the time.
It was a game-changer.
I knew that Chelsea were issuing a programme for the game that would feature a cover photograph of the jubilant Chelsea players at Old Trafford, with Chopper holding the trophy alongside a few team mates, and I liked that. Sometimes Chelsea get it right.
As time moves on, though, it has been sad to see so many players from both teams pass away over the years. Of the twenty-two starters at Old Trafford, only ten remain.
Chelsea.
Peter Bonetti : 20 April 2020, aged 78.
Ron Harris – aged 79
Eddie McCreadie – aged 83.
John Hollins : 14 June 2023, aged 76.
John Dempsey – aged 77.
David Webb – aged 77.
Tommy Baldwin : 22 January 2024, aged 78.
Charlie Cooke – aged 81.
Peter Osgood : 1 March 2006, aged 59.
Ian Hutchinson : 19 September 2002, aged 54.
Peter Houseman : 20 March 1977, aged 31.
Leeds United.
David Harvey – aged 76.
Paul Madeley : 23 July 2018, aged 73.
Terry Cooper : 31 July 2021, aged 77.
Billy Bremner : 7 December 1997, aged 54.
Jack Charlton : 10 July 2020, aged 85.
Norman Hunter : 20 April 2020, aged 76.
Peter Lorimer : 20 March 2021, aged 74.
Alan Clarke – aged 77.
Mick Jones – aged 78.
Johnny Giles – aged 83.
Eddie Gray – aged 76.
I dropped off PD and Parky at the bottom of the North End Road and I dropped off Ron outside the main gates. As I slowly retraced my steps back to my usual parking place, police sirens were wailing.
Leeds were in town.
At about 5.15pm, I popped into an Italian restaurant on the Lillee Road – “Pizza@Home” – for the first time and I enjoyed some lovely food. I then dipped into “Café Ole” at the bottom of the North End Road once more for a large cappuccino. It was all about staying out of the rain for as long as I could. Funnily enough, there was a bundle of friends at “Café Ole” – Pete, Liz, Mark, Scott, Paul, Gerry, Tom, Leigh, Darren – probably all with the same need to keep dry.
I had a nice talk with Tom, the first one for ages.
I was inside Stamford Bridge at about 7pm. PD told me that, should we beat Leeds, we would play host to Leicester City in the Quarter-Finals.
Mixed blessings.
I was angling for a dream draw of Newcastle United at home on Saturday 16 March as it would mark the fiftieth anniversary of my very first game against the same opposition. But I was relatively happy with a home draw. I hoped that the game would be played on the Saturday though. Outside of a home draw, we all wanted Coventry City. Ah well, it was not to be.
PD ran through the team.
“We’re playing with three wingers. Sterling, Madueke, Mudryk.”
I had swapped out with Parky to allow him a seat next to PD in The Sleepy Hollow. There were around six-thousand noisy Leeds fans in The Shed, their largest away following at Stamford Bridge in over fifty-years, maybe ever.
At about 7.15pm, Ron Harris was interviewed pitch side with club historian Rick Glanvil as they spoke about the 1970 FA Cup Final and its place in football folklore. Amazingly, the replay was watched by 28.49 million people. It is at number six in the list of the highest-ever TV audiences in the UK, alongside royal weddings, royal funerals and England games. Apart from the “Matthews Final” of 1953, it is probably the most famous FA Cup Final of them all.
The usual dimming of lights and fireworks, but then the shock of Leeds in an all pink kit, albeit one with a shirt that resembled a polyester outfit from the ‘seventies that Mrs. Slocombe might wear at a Grace Brothers night out.
Hideous.
Time to sort the team out. I had a look.
Sanchez
Gusto – Disasi – Chalobah – Gilchrist
Caicedo – Enzo
Madueke – Mudryk – Sterling
Jackson
I had forgotten that Ethan Ampadu was now full-time at Leeds United after three relegations on loan to Sheffield United, Venezia and Spezia. Eddie Gray’s great-nephew Archie was playing for the visitors. He is the son of Andy Gray, who I remember at Leeds, and the grandson of Frank Gray who I also remember at Leeds.
Conclusion : I am getting old.
The visitors in The Shed noisily shouted “We are Leeds, we are Leeds, we are Leeds” and Enzo kicked the ball back to a team mate.
We were off.
The pink visitors attacked us in the Matthew Harding. Mudryk was in the “Number 10” slot, the space recently occupied by Cole Palmer. We began on top.
I noted many empty seats during the first few minutes but most filled. There were, however a few hundred unused seats in the top corners of Westview all game.
I was just getting settled, making a mental note of all the songs that the visitors were singing at us, when a lumped ball from deep released Daniel James who had lost the back-tracking Alfie Gilchrist. The Leeds player lobbed the ball just wide of the goal frame.
From the goal-kick following this miss, a typical Chelsea disaster of 2023/24 occurred right in front of me. Sanchez played the ball to Axel Disasi who he chose not to clear his lines, no doubt under instruction from the management. He played the ball into the feet of Moises Caicedo, even though there were three opponents close by. Possession was lost, Jaidon Anthony pushed the ball square to Mateo Joseph who slammed the ball past Robert Sanchez.
The away hordes roared.
After just eight minutes we were one-nil down.
The away end went through a few favourites.
“Should I be Chelsea, should I be Leeds, here’s what she said to me.”
“Let’s go fucking mental, let’s go fucking mental.”
“Marching on together.”
We tried to retaliate immediately, with Sterling setting up Enzo but his low effort flew past Ilian Meslier’s post.
On fifteen minutes, we constructed a really fine move down the right, with a smattering of one-touch passes. Jackson back to Disasi, to Gusto, inside to Jackson, to Madueke, to Caicedo and a killer pass to Jackson, who carefully guided the ball home.
Lovely goal.
It was back to 1-1.
Another shot from Enzo, but easily stopped by Meslier.
“Come on Chelsea, Come on Chelsea. Come on Chelsea. Come on Chelsea.”
A slashed effort from an angle by Madueke that only hit the side-netting. Another shot from Madueke was so high and wide that it almost defied description. Mudryk went close at an angle. At a corner, Mudryk took Shedloads of abuse from the Leeds fans.
Leeds countered occasionally. For some reason, their right-winger James (he scored against us in his first game for Manchester United in August 2019) reminded me of Eddie Gray, his build and his running style.
On thirty-seven minutes, another fine move down our right. The ball was worked centrally at first, Caicedo to Chalobah to Madueke. As so often happens, he chose to dribble laterally, but in doing so encountered some space. He pushed the ball between defenders to Gusto on the right. A touch, a prod into Sterling, and a cutback to Mudryk, and a first-time finish, sweeping it low past the ‘keeper. Another great goal.
He stood in front of his detractors.
“Ви казали?”
We were 2-1 up.
The visitors were not impressed.
“2-1 and you still don’t sing.”
Leeds came again and James fired over from a free-kick. Jaidon Anthony ghosted in from the left and thumped one that just missed the far post.
“We all hate Leeds and Leeds and Leeds…”
At the break, it was time to reflect on the first-half. We had scored two nice goals, but some of our build-up play was just too slow. Moises Caicedo was the best of our bunch, strong in the tackle, decent passing, holding it all together. We had done just enough.
Alas, in the second-half, we didn’t do much at all.
Leeds began the stronger and after a while it dawned on me that we had hardly strung more than two passes together. On fifty-eight minutes, with the Chelsea crowd not involved and docile, Ampadu swung a long cross over to Anthony. I was dismayed that Gusto did not make a stab at the ball, allowing a long cross towards the far post where Joseph was able to leap, totally unmarked, and head down and in.
It was now 2-2.
On sixty-one minutes, a double substitution.
Conor Gallagher for Madueke.
Ben Chilwell for Gusto.
Chilwell to left-back, Gilchrist to right-back, Gallagher to the middle, Mudryk to the left, Sterling to the right.
Our play went to pieces.
“We’re second-best here.”
A shot from Anthony was deflected but its trajectory stayed close to Sanchez.
Our passing was off, our intensity had slowed, we had stopped doing the small things. We looked so tired.
Mudryk crossed high but Jackson was always underneath it.
On seventy-four minutes, more changes.
Levi Colwill for Gilchrist.
Cole Palmer for Sterling.
Disasi to right-back, Colwill in the middle, Palmer on the left.
We still struggled. We all began to wonder about extra-time and penalties, another late night.
On the ninetieth minute, there was really fine play from Enzo who fought to retain possession on the left and he scurried forward. He spotted the run of Gallagher and slotted a beautiful pass into him. Gallagher’s touch was exquisite and despite being squeezed by two Leeds defenders, he lifted the ball over Meslier.
Get in you beauty.
Now it was our turn to scream and shout.
Stamford Bridge roared, but how I wished that it had been roaring all night.
In injury-time, a debut was given to Jimi Tauriainen, whose first moment of action was to foul a Leeds defender; obviously he had read the script.
Chelsea 3 Leeds United 2.
At the end, “Freed From Desire “ and “One Step Beyond”
We can’t really grumble about getting home draws all of the way through the two domestic cups this season can we? Eight out of eight.
Wimbledon.
Brighton.
Blackburn Rovers.
Newcastle United.
Preston North End.
Aston Villa.
Leeds United.
Leicester City.
During the day, I had joked to a few people about the game against Leeds.
“Yeah, looking forward to it. But what’s the end goal? Get to another Cup Final at Wembley and lose that one too?”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Outside, mobs of Leeds made their way back to waiting cars and coaches. I had not seen so many police at Chelsea in years.
On the walk back to the car, Ron Harris explained that Eddie Gray was with the Leeds board at Stamford Bridge and had asked to be linked up with his old adversary from 1970. The two former players spent thirty minutes in each other’s company. In fact, Eddie Gray did the exact same thing on his last visit to Chelsea last season. I admired that. These old warriors must love to meet up and share stories of that game and others.
“How old is Eddie Gray, Ron? Same age as you?”
“Couple years younger, I think.”
“Right.”
We walked on.
“Oh yeah, I remember now. When he played against you in 1970 he was younger. But after the replay, I heard that he aged significantly.”
Ron smiled.
I soon escaped from London and for the first time that I can remember I didn’t stop once until I pulled up at “The Milk Churn” at about midnight. I was home by 12.40am, a relatively early night.
Right then, back to the league now. Brentford on Saturday. See you there.
This was always my fear. Despite a resurgence in our play over the past month – high points at Villa, the second-half at Palace and at City – there was still a niggling doubt that whatever team was selected to play at Wembley, the players just could not be trusted to drag us over the line. And despite Liverpool players falling by the wayside with injuries as the final approached, I had a fear that there would not be enough in our locker – nous, determination, skill – to give us a much-needed win.
All of our deficiencies – and a few of our positives – were discussed at length as I collected PD, Glenn and Parky and drove up to the M4 at Chippenham. As I approached Junction 17 I made my views clear.
“Right, that’s enough about the game today. Let’s not talk any more about it. Let’s enjoy the day ahead.”
I was up just after 5.45am. I had collected the two Frome lads at 7am and Parky in Holt at 7.30am. By 9.30am, we were tucking into our breakfasts at “The Half Moon Café” on the Fulham Palace Road. At 10am, I pulled up outside “The Eight Bells” at Putney Bridge and PD shouted out to Salisbury Steve, who was just about to disappear inside as the front doors were opened, to get a round in. For the third League Cup Final in a row, we were staying the night at the Premier Inn opposite, and I soon parked the car outside. We were hoping that this would be third time lucky. Against Manchester City in 2019 and against Liverpool in 2022, we had narrowly lost on penalties.
On the Saturday, I had watched Frome Town obtain a relatively easy 3-1 win at home to Tavistock to nudge themselves into pole position in the table. As the beers started to flow, I never felt confident that Chelsea would follow up Frome’s win to give me a perfect weekend. Mark, now living in Spain, and his son Luca, still in The Netherlands, joined us and the laughter roared around the pub. We tried not to think too much about the football.
This would be Chelsea Football Club’s tenth League Cup Final.
Our first final took place four months before I was born in March 1965, when we defeated Leicester City over two legs. In 1972, we infamously lost 1-2 to Stoke City at Wembley and I have no recollection of the game. We had to wait ages for the next one; a 2-0 triumph against Middlesbrough at old Wembley in 1998 after extra-time. Next up was a match in Cardiff at the Millennium Stadium against Liverpool in 2005; we narrowly edged it 3-2 after extra time. Two years later, at the same venue, a 2-1 triumph against Arsenal. In 2008, the 2-1 loss to Tottenham Hotspur, after extra-time, at the new Wembley Stadium. In 2015, we comfortably defeated the same opponent 2-0. Then, the two tight losses in 2019 to Manchester City (0-0 after extra-time, losing 3-4 on penalties) and in 2022 to Liverpool (0-0 after extra-time, losing 10-11 on penalties).
A potted history of us in nine previous League Cup Finals does not tell the entire story of course.
1965 : there are numerous stories about Eddie McCreadie’s apparently masterful solo run up the middle of the park before sliding the ball past the ‘keeper. It was only our second piece of silverware in sixty years.
1972 : “Blue Is The Colour” was released specifically for this game and I used to get such a thrill listening to it on the radio for years after. An Osgood goal for Chelsea, but George bloody Eastham gave Stoke their sole trophy in 161 years.
1998 : the first-part of a Cup Double that season and another Wembley goal from Roberto di Matteo. The good times were returning to Stamford Bridge.
2005 : the first Mourinho season and the first Mourinho silverware. In an enthralling match, we went behind early on after John Arne Riise belted one in from distance. A Steven Gerrard own goal levelled it and two late goals from Mateja Kezman and Didier Drogba gave us a huge win. Mourinho was sent-off for his “shush” but we did not care less. It was the first game that I had seen Chelsea play in an enclosed stadium.
2007 : two more Didier Drogba goals gave us a win after Theo Walcott scored early for Arsenal. The game that Cesc Fabregas was pelted with celery at a corner and the game where John Terry was knocked unconscious by a boot to his head.
2008 : we went ahead through Didier Drogba, but Tottenham levelled with a Dimitar Berbatov penalty before Jonathan Woodgate headed Tottenham in front. Our support that day was the worst that I can ever remember. It was one of my all-time lows as a Chelsea follower.
2015 : this was a tough game for me, coming just three days after my mother’s passing. Goals from John Terry and Diego Costa gave us a relatively easy win.
2019 : a decent performance and great support from the Chelsea crowd. This was the day that Kepa notoriously humiliated Maurizio Sarri by not following instructions to be substituted by Wily Caballero.
2022 : this could have gone either way, but a ridiculously long penalty shootout went against us when Cesar Azpilicueta missed the only penalty out of twenty-two.
Going in to the 2024 Final, our record was won 5 and lost 4.
At 12.45pm, we caught a District Line tube up to Paddington and changed trains to get ourselves over to Marylebone. Here, the ever-reliable Jason handed over a spare ticket to me that would then be passed to Glenn. Just as we were about to hop on a train to Wembley Stadium, the call went out that a few of the lads that we know from Westbury and Trowbridge were in the “Sports Bar.” The drinking continued.
“What football?”
We eventually caught a train at about 2.15pm to Wembley.
We bumped into many familiar faces at Marylebone, on the train, at the station, on the march to the turnstiles.
I remember my first visit to the old Wembley, in around 1972 or 1973, on the back of a visit to see my grandfather’s older brother in Southall. There was no game. I just wanted to see Wembley, beguiled by either the 1972 or 1973 FA Cup Finals. We parked just off “Wembley Way” – actually Olympic Way – and I remember being mightily impressed as I saw the twin towers for the first time. The stadium was at the top of a slight rise in the land, with its own added embankments and steps giving it an air of importance. It stood alone, not encumbered by any buildings nearby, only the London sky above it. It exuded a great sense of place.
Wembley in 2024 is much different. Bleak flats and hotels take up every spare square yard of space, from the walk up to the stadium from Wembley Park Station, right up to the immediate surrounds of the stadium itself. I don’t suffer from claustrophobia and I am glad I don’t. At Wembley, between the bland stadium walls and the oppressive bleak apartment buildings I would be surely panting with anxiety.
It is a horrible stadium. I hate it.
Regular readers of these tales will know only too well how we struggle to get in to Wembley in time. At 2.50pm, I was still in the queue. Once inside, an escalator was not working, delaying me further. I eventually made it in at around 3.05pm.
Sigh.
Our seats were in row thirty-eight, just a few from the very back of the highest part of the stadium. We were virtually on the half-way line. My calves were aching. God knows how much pain PD and Parky were in.
A quick check of the team. As expected, the same as against Manchester City.
Petrovic.
Gusto – Disasi – Colwill – Chilwell
Caicedo – Enzo
Palmer – Gallagher – Sterling
Jackson
Everyone was stood. PJ and Brian – from the pre-match pub at City last weekend – were right behind us along with Feisal and Martin. We would find out later that Gary, Daryl, Ed and Clive were a few seats in front.
These seats only cost £41. Decent.
Liverpool had the best of the very early part of the game and we looked stretched at times. They enjoyed the first real chance when Axel Diasi allowed Luis Diaz a shot but Djordje Petrovic was equal to it.
There wasn’t a great deal of noise thus far. But I always try to look for clues to see which support is more “up for it.” My first observation wasn’t good. On the upper balcony wall, to my left – our unlucky East End – there were red banners everywhere. To my right – the West End, us – the same balcony between the Club Wembley tier and the upper tier was almost completely devoid of Chelsea flags and banners.
Ugh. An early lead to The Scousers.
As the game continued, neither sets of fans were particularly noisy. Were nerves to blame? It couldn’t have been due to the lack of alcohol. Maybe the game needed to ignite to fully engage the supporters and their voices.
Chelsea began to grow into the game and on twenty minutes, a Conor Gallagher cross from the right was played in to Raheem Sterling. There was a heavy touch and the ball eventually found Cole Palmer. His stab at goal was from close-in but the Liverpool ‘keeper Kelleher saved well. Nicolas Jackson’s follow-up was blocked too.
On the half-hour mark, Palmer padded the ball forward to Jackson who moved the ball square to Jackson. His grass-cutter cross to the far post – towards Sterling – was perfection and as our often-maligned striker prodded home, I turned to PD and we both screamed at each other like fools.
Alas.
VAR.
The goal was disallowed. Offside.
Bollocks.
Liverpool’s Gakpo headed against the base of Petrovic’ near post.
The game had taken a while but it was warming up. However, still not much noise, and virtually nothing from our end to the right. There were a few half-hearted chants from our section – “Three Little Birds” is a difficult one to get going in the huge spaces of the upper tier at Wembley – and the noise did not build.
Just before the half-time break, I spotted many red seats in the Chelsea end, the lure of a pint or a pee too strong for many. In contrast, there were hardly any empty seats in the Liveroool end. Advantage still to Liverpool. Bollocks.
When the whistle sounded, I disappeared downstairs and hoped that I would be able to conquer the north face of the Eiger on my return. I made it, but it seemed that we had lost PJ and Feisal to frostbite.
The second-half began and we began to probe the Liverpool defence more often. Gallagher set up Enzo but the Argentinian managed to get his tango feet tangled up and the chance went begging. At the other end, Petrovic punched clear from Elliott.
On the hour, a long cross from the Liverpool left was met by a leap from Van Dijk. The ball nestled in the net. We groaned. In the Liverpool end to our left, red flares were ignited, a horrible reminder of a scene at the end of the 2022 FA Cup Final.
After what seemed like an age, VAR was summoned.
No goal.
Christopher Nkunku replaced Sterling.
The game increased in quality and intensity. Chances were exchanged.
A Gallagher corner dropped into the six-yard box. Levi Colwill headed it on but Disasi made a mess of the final touch. Kelleher was able to jump unchallenged to claim. From my vantage point it seemed impossible that we had not edged ahead.
Gakpo blazed over.
Everyone was still stood. Everyone in the stadium. You have to marvel at us football fans’ ability to stand for hours and hours.
There was a nice interchange between Gusto and Caicedo that set up the silky skills of Palmer. His touch inside to Gallagher was flicked on and we were exasperated when his effort came back off the far post.
Fackinell.
Gomez at Petrovic. An easy save.
Caicedo to Gusto, but a searching ball was just too long for Nkunku at the far post.
Gallagher was given another chance, set up by Palmer, but with just Kelleher to beat there was a lame finish.
Fackinell.
We still created chances. A fine ball by Enzo out to Jackson who did well to hold the ball up. He played it back to Gallagher who blazed over.
Mykhailo Mudryk for Jackson.
Another attack, with bodies in the box, Kelleher saved at point blank range from Nkunku.
Oh my bloody goodness.
At ninety-minutes it was 0-0.
“We have been here before Liverpool, we have been here before.”
There was no time to pause, no time to think, the game began again. Or rather, it didn’t for us. All of the momentum that we had built in the last quarter of the game seemed to disappear as the night grew colder.
Noni Madueke for Gallagher. What? Answers on a postcard.
Trevoh Chalobah for Chilwell.
Liverpool came again, with a few efforts on our goal. We had Petrovic to thank once more. His had been a fine performance. There was a hugely impressive “Allez Allez Allez” from the red corner to my left. It was the loudest noise of the entire match. I looked over at the blue corner to my right. I heard nothing. I just saw a few blue flags being waved in the far corner. As far as responses go, it was almost fucking laughable.
Where has our support gone? It was excellent in 2019 against City. This, in 2024, was even worse than the 2008 debacle against Tottenham. It makes me so sad.
At half-time in extra-time, I suspect we all feared penalties once again.
The second period soon came and we watched as Chelsea grew weaker. The minutes ticked by. Our new additions did not add anything to the team. Mudryk frustrated us in the way only he can do. We looked tired. I felt tired.
Penalties surely.
With just two minutes remaining, a Liverpool corner. I found myself momentarily gazing over at the lower tier opposite, the Chelsea section. Everyone was still stood. I looked back just in time to see the ball fly into the net from another Van Dijk header.
After a League Cup tie on the Tuesday, we now had an FA Cup tie on the Friday. Two cup games within four days, both at Stamford Bridge, 460 miles for me to navigate, it’s tough at the top.
Of course I enjoyed the 6-1 triumph over Middlesbrough on Tuesday, but I was certainly not getting carried away with the amount of goals that we scored. It was, after all, only Middlesbrough, a mid-table Championship team.
I was sure that if we managed to score against a far more formidable side in the FA Fourth Round tie, I would be celebrating more wildly.
But halfway through Friday morning I was struggling. After finishing the blog for the Middlesbrough game at 10pm on Thursday night, I was up at 4.45am on Friday in order to work an early 6am to 2pm shift in the twin worlds of logistics and office furniture. At about 9.30am, I was bloody hanging, stifling yawns and finding it hard to concentrate. I was dreading the drive to and from London. I would not be home again around 1am in the small hours of Friday / Saturday night. Thankfully the arrival of some pods for our office coffee-maker breathed new life into me.
I picked-up the chaps outside the pub opposite work and set off, feeling fine, feeling happy that work was over for the week, a Chelsea game a reward for my sleep-starved existence. The clear blue skies and bright sunshine invigorated me further and I was actually able to drive to London with a deep sense of contentment.
Alas, mind-numbing traffic congestion as I approached the Hammersmith roundabout halted our swift progress. I eventually dropped two of my passengers at “The Eight Bells” at 4.45pm and the remaining one outside the main gates at Stamford Bridge at just before 5pm. After parking up in virtually the same spot as on Tuesday, I dropped into “The Anchor” take-away for an unplanned saveloy and chips. It warmed me up, and gave me some fuel on a cold night in SW6.
I walked to West Brompton tube and caught the tube down to Putney Bridge. I spent from 6pm to 7pm in the company of PD, Glenn, Salisbury Steve and London Luke. Rich, from St. Albans – we go back to The Benches in 1984 – was there with his daughter Amber, nineteen, and James, fourteen. It would be James’ first-ever game. I had picked up tickets for the three of them from friends in the US who had bought them to raise their loyalty points for a game later in the season. The tickets came from Jacksonville to Axonville.
Boom boom.
Appearing at “The Eight Bells” for a midweek game at the Bridge was a first for us. The place was full of regulars. On the tube up to Fulham Broadway, it was no surprise to see Villa fans in our carriage.
“Yippy-aye-ay, yippy-aye-oh, Holte Enders in the skoi.”
The weather was bitter, much colder than Tuesday.
There was a welcoming tune that greeted me as I reached the seats.
“Blue Monday” by New Order.
I was behind the goal in the Matthew Harding Upper again, but a few rows nearer the front and a few yards closer to the goal than on Tuesday. It honestly felt like only five minutes ago since I was last at Stamford Bridge.
In the match programme, Rick Glanville had written a very interesting article about Chelsea Football Club’s early desire for Stamford Bridge to host FA Cup Finals after it became apparent that Crystal Palace was not an appropriate venue. Lo and behold, we almost played in the first FA Cup Final – in 1920 – to take place at Stamford Bridge. Sadly, we lost 1-3 to Aston Villa in a semi-final that took place at Bramall Lane in Sheffield. That year, Villa defeated Huddersfield Town 1-0 in the final, a game in which my grandfather may have attended. I penned a few pieces about this in the 2019/20 and 2020/21 FA Cup campaigns.
My first viewing of an Aston Villa FA Cup tie against Chelsea took place in early 1987, an away game that ended 2-2. We won the replay 2-1.
The next FA Cup tie against Villa was of much more importance.
The 2000 FA Cup Final was always going to be a very special occasion. The final tie of the 1999-2000 competition was to be held at the original Wembley Stadium – chosen for Cup Finals after Stamford Bridge’s little run from 1920 to 1922 – for the very last time. The venerable old stadium, dating back to 1923, had hosted so many important and memorable football games in its eight decades. In its latter years, it was showing its age, but the thrill, for me anyway, of seeing the famous twin towers on FA Cup Final days evoked wonderful memories of past games and past glories. However, I totally understood the need to update the national stadium. As the season developed, I hoped that we would end up there for one final hurrah.
Season 1999/2000 was an eventful season for Chelsea Football Club. For the first time ever, we embarked on our first every Champions League journey. After winning a qualifier against Skonta Riga – I went to the home leg, not the away game – we were drawn in a group with Milan, Galatasaray and Hertha Berlin. I went to all home games, but no away games.
At the time, my job involved shift work and so I could not always get time off work to follow the boys. I still went to thirty-eight games, my highest-ever total, beating the thirty-five games of 1997/98.
In the league, despite walloping the then European Champions Manchester United 5-0 at Stamford Bridge, we flattered to deceive, finishing in fifth place and a hefty twenty-six points behind United who romped home. In the League Cup, we were sent packing in our first tie, a 0-1 home defeat by Huddersfield Town.
We qualified for the second Group Phase of the Champions League and were grouped with Lazio, Marseille and Feyenoord. I went to the game in Rome, a dour 0-0 draw. Winning that second group set us up for a semi-final with Barcelona. I was lucky enough to go to both games; sadly, a mad 3-1 victory at home was matched by a 1-5 reverse in Catalonia.
As the latter stages of the season were played out, Chelsea made solid progress in the FA Cup. We won 6-1 at Hull City – old Boothferry Park – then enjoyed a run of home games, and victories, against Nottingham Forest, Leicester City and Gillingham. This set us up for a semi-final against Newcastle United at Wembley. Two Gus Poyet goals sent us into the FA Cup Final in a very fine game that would have graced the final itself. Our opponents on 20 May 2000 would be Aston Villa who had beaten Bolton Wanderers on penalties in their semi-final at Wembley.
However, the FA Cup wasn’t all plain sailing that season. For the first time that I could remember, the all-important Round Three was played in early December, though I forget the reasoning, and this was met with a formidable backlash. Also, Manchester United were forced to compete in the inaugural FIFA World Club Championships in Brazil in January 2000 by the FA and so withdrew from the 1999/2000 competition. United drew a lot of flak for withdrawing but, in reality, their hands were tied. In hindsight, one wonders why United could not have entered a youth team in the FA Cup to give the competition some dignity. In my mind, the 1999/2000 FA Cup was played out with an asterisk against it.
It had been a decent campaign for Chelsea and I just wanted us to win the FA Cup against Aston Villa to give us some sort of reward for the season. Unfortunately, I found myself coming off a week of nights, finishing mid-morning on the Friday, and was rather tired as we assembled for a pre-match drink or two at “The Princess Royal” – no longer there – near St. Johns Wood tube station and Lords Cricket Ground. There were probably more Villa fans in the pub than us.
“Ugly bunch, aren’t they?” whispered Daryl.
We had our usual pre-match chat and I think I wasn’t the only one who was a mite nervous. In 1997, it felt that fate – Matthew Harding – was on our side, but this one was too tight to call. Villa, playing in their first FA Cup Final since 1957, had finished just one place below us in the league table.
We caught the tube up to Wembley and posed for photos in front of the gleaming white Twin Towers. We had the same end as in 1997. That would hopefully count for something. FA Cup Finals are always linked to odd superstitions.
Our team?
Ed De Goey
Mario Melchiot – Frank Leboeuf – Marcel Desailly – Celestine Babayaro
Roberto di Matteo – Didier Deschamps – Gus Poyet – Dennis Wise
George Weah – Gianfranco Zola
The normal right backs Albert Ferrer and Graeme Le Saux were both injured. The Aston Villa team – playing in peculiar broad stripes – included David James, Gareth Southgate, Dion Dublin, Benito Carbone and Paul Merson. Merson, the Chelsea fan, was making his second Wembley appearance against Chelsea in barely over two years. Of course, the much-loved Gianluca Vialli was our smart-dressed manager at the time. Note George Weah’s white boots.
In truth, this was a poor game. The first-half was very mundane with precious few strikes on goal. Chances increased after the break with Chelsea enjoying more of them. Midway through the second-half, Dennis Wise scored for us with a close-in prod after a James fumble and the place erupted, limbs everywhere. Sadly, after the euphoria there was misery as we saw that the goal had been disallowed for off-side. From a Gianfranco Zola free-kick on our left, there was another James fumble. Roberto di Matteo was on hand to quickly hook the ball into the roof of the net from close range. We celebrated again but it always felt like it wasn’t with the same intensity of the first disallowed goal. It seemed that all of our energy had been expelled when that Wise effort went in.
Strange game football.
God knows what we would have made of the spectre of VAR in 2000.
After the game, we witnessed some marvellous celebrations from the Chelsea players, who were as relieved as the supporters that the long season had harvested some silverware. For some reason, we all assembled at a pub near Paddington Station after the game. I think that the idea was to give the lads who were not staying up in London for the parade on the Sunday a little send-off before they caught the train west. We saw a few lads from Frome off. Glenn and I went back to stay at Alan’s flat in South London.
This FA Cup lark was alright, wasn’t it?
We had won in 1997 and again in 2000.
These were great times to be Chelsea supporters. I just tried not to think about that bloody asterisk in 2000.
Oh, one last remark about the two centre forwards from 2000.
George Weah was President of Liberia from 2018 until earlier this week.
Dion Dublin currently presents “Homes Under The Hammer” on the BBC.
Weah won that battle, no asterisk required.
We met Villa in one more FA Cup tie, the 2010 semi-final at Wembley. We used to drink in “The Duke Of York” for Wembley games in those days and seven of us memorably showed up in Lacoste polos. Snappy dressers, eh?
The game was an easy 3-0 win with us watching way above the halfway line, with all of the goals coming in the second-half. Thankyou Didier Drogba, Florent Malouda and Frank Lampard. It was a vital step in our march to the domestic double in 2010.
I am not sure how many Villa fans were in the 50,018 crowd at the 1920 FA Cup Final, but there were six thousand Villa fans at Stamford Bridge in 2024. They had the usual smattering of flags, but were not wearing quite so many colours as ‘Boro on Tuesday.
I was seated at 7.30pm.
“Disco 2000” by Pulp.
If this was a deliberate dig by the Chelsea DJ at Villa regarding the 2000 FA Cup Final, then fair play. I remember that in the late ‘nineties, in the car to and from Somerset to Chelsea, we changed the words.
“We’ll win the league by the Year 2000.”
It later became “we won the Cup in the Year 2000.”
We had seen the line-up, but Levi Colwill was injured pre-match. It resulted in a last minute change.
Petrovic
Gilchrist – Disasi – Silva – Badiashile
Gallagher – Caicedo – Enzo
Madueke – Palmer – Sterling
The pitch was watered right up until the last minute. Water gave way to flames. The players entered the pitch. Chelsea in royal blue and navy tracky tops, Villa in claret ones.
The game began.
We began OK, but then Villa had a little spell. A really well-worked free-kick (memories of John Sheridan in 1991) was played by the Villa captain John McGinn out to Alex Moreno out on the Villa left. His cross was met with a “down and up” header by Youri Tielemans (our nemesis in the 2021 FA Cup Final), but Djordje Petrovic palmed it over as the ball bounced up off the deck.
Phew.
Soon after, a short corner was worked inside and Moussa Diaby unleashed a shot at goal. The ball was deflected by Alfie Gilchrist into the path of Douglas Luiz, who tapped in from a few feet out. The Villa players ran off to celebrate down below PD, Parky and Co., and their fans roared.
However, after what seemed an absolute age, VAR chimed in. A handball? No idea. No clue.
We waited.
And waited.
And waited.
No goal.
Phew.
No celebrations from me though.
This seemed to spark some life into us and we improved. At around the twenty-minute mark we had a lovely little spell. We admired a great move from Raheem Sterling to Enzo to Cole Palmer – a beautiful flick – and a pass that set up Noni Madueke. However, his studied low shot was met with a fine save by Emilio Martinez. A Villa defender made a balls-up of passing to his team mate after good pressure from the lively Conor Gallagher. The ball ended up at the feet of Palmer, but he was found wanting with a tame shot at goal, again cleared by Martinez.
Ugh. Martinez. The memory of that “non-Final” on the first day of August in 2020.
On thirty minutes, Sterling set up Palmer who reached the by-line but the incoming cross was somehow blocked. Raheem was having a mixed game. Sometimes you just feel that he often dribbles at players as his first thought rather than looking up to assess other options. He seems obsessed in beating opponents. On the other side, Madueke was full of flicks, turns, spins, but they didn’t always work out to the greater good.
It looked odd to see the central Palmer playing adrift of the others. He looked like he was sweeping up behind the Villa paring of Ezri Konsa and Clement Lenglet. A few years back, supporters would have wondered what on earth he was doing.
It was an intriguing half and I was enjoying it. After the disallowed goal, Villa seemed to go into their shell. We, however grew stronger and more confident.
Good work from Madueke in front of Parkyville and the ball was rolled back to Sterling, finding himself on the right flank, but his cross was headed by Benoit Badiashile straight at Martinez.
At the break, I was happy with our performance against a decent team. At times our passing was a little too slow for our liking. I couldn’t help think about that old adage about any move having a crucial moment when the ball has to be played. That moment was reached, and ignored, too many times for my liking. Our slow passing – at times, not always – seemed to allow the momentum to be lost. In the middle, Enzo and Moises Caicedo solid and involved, while Gallagher must have covered almost ever blade of grass on the pitch.
The Villa fans began loudly but soon quietened. Our noise wasn’t bad, especially the first twenty minutes.
There was music at half-time.
“Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division.
“There She Goes” by The La’s.
The second-half began. More decent stuff from us. Down the left, Enzo slid in Gallagher and the ball fell to Palmer on his favoured left foot. He guided the ball towards goal but it was always drifting past the far stick. A long cross from Matty Cash on the right was headed over by Moreno, unhindered, at the far post.
Midway through the half, Martinez’ clearance hit Palmer’s heels but he was unable to connect with the ball as it dropped back down to Earth. Groans from everyone. A huge chance had been missed.
In the first-half, Villa’s play seemed to drop away after their goal was disallowed. In this second-half, our performance seemed to lack lustre after this miss. Perhaps it was tiredness.
On 65 minutes, Ben Chilwell replaced the steady Gilchrist. The back four was realigned with Disasi moved to right back, Badiashile in the middle with Silva and Chilwell out left.
Cash was proving to be a handful and the full back was then set up by Ollie Watkins but, thankfully, his low shot was saved well, down low, a Petrovic speciality. The save was warmly applauded. From a corner, Konsa slashed wide of the framework. Villa were enjoying a good spell, but I was pleased that the home crowd noted their ascendency and dug in and provided the loudest support of the night.
“Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea – Chelsea, Chelsea, Chelsea.”
I could hardly believe my eyes as I saw Petrovic going long at goal kicks as the second-half continued, a sure sign that players were tiring.
On 77 minutes, Armando Broja replaced Sterling and Mykhailo Mudryk replaced Madueke.
We seemed to be shot as an attacking force and neither of these latest two subs were able to make their mark. We defended resolutely.
A late sub, on 89 minutes, saw Carney Chukwuemeka replace Enzo.
It stayed 0-0.
We would have to reconvene at Villa Park in a week and a half’s time. So be it. At least we will be in the draw for Round Five.
As I left, the final song of my night rang out.
“Brimful Of Asha” by Cornershop.
Ah – a nice bit of symmetry. One of my friends from Wembley 2010 – Simon, pictured in the white polo, third from the right – directed the video of that song, a hit from 1997.
On the drive back in the car – a decent finishing time of 12.50am for me – we wondered how many we would get for Villa Park.
“More than the usual 3,000 no doubt.”
“Wonder if we will have enough time to pop into ‘The Vine’ too?”
Next up, back to the league and an away game at Anfield on Wednesday.
I am sure that I wasn’t the only Chelsea supporter who wasn’t a little fearful going into the 2022 FA Cup Final against Liverpool at Wembley. On the early morning drive into London – I collected PD as early as 6am – the feeling was of worry and impending doom. As has been proven by the league table – “the league table does not lie, it just sits down occasionally” – we are a fair distance behind both Liverpool and Manchester City this season, as we were last season and the season before it. Additionally, a defeat at the hands of the Scousers would mean a record-breaking third consecutive FA Cup Final loss. And that thought was just horrible too.
But, bollocks to all that, we were off to Wembley again and we kept ourselves contented with the usual badinage of wisecracks as I ate up the miles. I was hopeful that one of the great FA Cup Final weekends was upon us. We all live in hope, right?
But first, a walk down memory lane.
1972.
The first FA Cup final that I can ever remember watching took place in 1972. It was between Arsenal and Leeds United. My best friend Andy was an Arsenal fan, though I can’t honestly remember wanting them to win. I was a neutral. I can still remember a few bits about the day. I was six, coming up to seven, and already a mad-keen Chelsea supporter. I remember that it was the centenary of the first competition that took place in 1872, though of course not the actual one-hundredth final due to the wartime interruptions. I remember representatives of all of the previous winners parading around the perimeter of the old Wembley pitch with flags. I was proud to see the Chelsea flag. Leading up to the final, Esso were running a promotion celebrating the game. Collectible coins – to go in an album – were rewarded for petrol purchases. Suffice to say, I must have pleaded with my father to only fuel up at Esso for a few weeks. I still have the album, completed, to this day.
I remember Allan Clarke, from around the penalty spot, scoring with a diving header and David Coleman exploding “one-nil” as if the game was over at that exact moment. I can recall Mick Jones dislocating his shoulder as he fell awkwardly attempting a cross and hobbling up the steps to the royal box, bandaged like a mummy. Fifty years ago. Bloody hell. Looking back, this is the very first club game I can remember seeing live, though I am pretty sure the England vs. West Germany game just one week before it is the first full game I saw live on TV. Or at least the first I can remember seeing.
I think.
1973.
The FA Cup Final was huge in those days. It was the only club game shown live on TV – both channels – and would remain that way until 1983 apart from rare one-offs. On a trip to London in the autumn of 1973 we called in to see Uncle Willie, my grandfather’s brother, at either his house in Southall or at a nursing home at Park Royal (where my father would park for my first Chelsea game in 1974, but that is – and has been – another story.) After the visit, my father granted my wish to drive up to see Wembley Stadium. That I had not asked to see Stamford Bridge is surprising from fifty years away, but I am sure that my father would have been intimidated by the thought of traffic in those more central areas.
Wembley it was.
I can vividly remember sitting in his car as we wended our way up to Wembley. On that fateful cab trip to Wembley for the “aborted” FA Cup semi-final recently, I half-recognised the journey. I have always had a heightened sense of place and a recollection and memory of places visited in other times.
I remember Dad parking off Olympic Way and me setting eyes on the magnificence of the historic stadium. It sat on top of an incline, and the twin towers immediately brought a lump to the throat of the eight-year-old me. I remember walking up to the stadium, the steps rising to the arched entrances, the dirty-cream colour of the walls, the grass embankments. I veered left and possibly tried to peer down the tunnel at the East End, an end that would become known as the “lucky tunnel end” for FA Cup Finals over the next few decades. The stadium was huge. However, it needed a bit of a clean-up. It looked a bit grimy. But I loved the way it dominated that particular part of North London. The visit has stayed etched in my mind ever since even though I was only there for maybe twenty minutes.
“Come on Chris, we need to head home.”
I can almost picture my father’s worried look on his face, chivvying me on.
1997.
Our appearance in the 2022 FA Cup Final provided a perfect time to recollect our appearance in the much-loved 1997 FA Cup Final; the quarter of a century anniversary.
Here are my recollections.
The 1996/97 season was a beautiful one, but also a sad one. The death of Matthew Harding in October 1996 hit all of us hard, and the immediate aftermath was tough on us all. Remarkably, our spirits rose not so long after Matthew’s tragic death when we signed Gianfranco Zola from Parma. It felt like, in the same way that getting Mickey Thomas in 1984 completed that wonderful team, the signing of the Italian magician helped complete the team being assembled by Ruud Gullit.
The FA Cup run was the stuff of legends. I went to most games.
West Brom at home : an easy win, 3-0.
Liverpool at home : the greatest of games, losing 0-2 at half-time, we turned it round to triumph 4-2.
Leicester City away : a 2-2 draw, I watched on TV.
Leicester City at home : Erland Johnsen’s finest moment and a Frank Leboeuf penalty gave us a 1-0 win in extra-time.
Pompey away : a 4-0 win in the mist, I watched on TV.
Wimbledon at Highbury : 3-0, a breeze, Zola’s twist to score in front of us in the North Bank.
On the Thursday before the Cup Final itself, we watched Suggs perform “Blue Day” on “TOTP” and the pleasure it gave us all is unquantifiable. Everything was well in the world, or in my world anyway. In the January of 1997, I was given a managerial job in my place of employment, a bit more dosh to follow the boys over land and sea, and maybe even Leicester next time.
On the Saturday of the final, a beautiful sun-filled morning, Glenn drove to London with two passengers; our friend Russel, eighteen, about to sit his “A Levels”, and little old me. I was thirty-one with no silverware to show for years and years of devotion to the cause. We parked-up at Al’s flat in Crystal Palace, caught the train at the local station, changed at Beckenham Junction and made our way to “The Globe” at Baker Street via London Bridge. We bumped into a few familiar faces from our part of the world – can you spot PD? – and enjoyed a sing-song before heading up to Wembley Park.
Funny the things I remember.
Lots and lots of singing on the way to Wembley. We felt unbeatable, truly. Ben Shermans for Daryl and myself. Lots of Chelsea colours elsewhere. I had just bought a pair of Nike trainers and I had not worn the bastards in. They pinched my feet all day long. We posed for my “VPN” banner underneath the twin towers. However, I tried to hoist it once inside, using small sticks, but was immediately told to hand it all in at a “left luggage” section in the concourse. Our seats were low-down, corner flag. Unfortunately, I had a killer headache all bloody game.
The Roberto di Matteo goal after just forty-three seconds was insane. Limbs were flailing everywhere. Oh my fucking head.
The dismal 1994 FA Cup Final was recollected, briefly. For that game, we only had about 17,000 tickets and it seemed that all neutral areas were United. In 1997, all the neutral tickets seemed to be hoovered up by us. Not sure how that worked to this day. I remember virtually nothing about the game except for Eddie Newton’s prod home at our end to make it safe at 2-0.
When Wisey lifted the famous silver pot, twenty-six years of waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting were evaporated.
It was always going to be “Matthew’s Cup” and so it proved. At the time, it was the best day of my life. Since, I have had two better ones; Bolton in 2005 and then Munich in 2012. But for anyone that was supporting the club on Saturday 17 May 1997, it was a feeling that was pretty indescribable.
So I won’t even try. Just look at the fucking pictures.
After the game, I remembered to collect my banner but I don’t remember how we reached Fulham Broadway. It seemed that all of the bars around the stadium had closed. We weren’t sure if this was because there was no beer left or if the police had said “enough.” One image stays in my mind. The Fulham Road was still closed for traffic and a sofa was sat in the middle of the road. Thankfully, we de-camped to our pub of choice that season, The Harwood Arms, and Pat and his three “Sisters of Murphy” let us in.
If there is a more blissful photo of Chelsea fans from that day – Neil, me, Daryl, Alan, Glenn outside the pub – then I would like to see it. We made it back to South London via Earls Court and God knows where else. We watched the game, taped, when we reached Alan’s flat late that night. We fell asleep happy.
On the Sunday morning, the big man made us breakfasts. We all hopped into Glenn’s car and made our way back to Fulham with “Blue Day” playing on a loop the entire day. Both Alan and I took our camcorders for the parade. The film I have of us driving along Wandsworth Bridge Road, Chelsea bunting everywhere, is a wonderful memory of another time, another place, lost in time.
We plotted up outside the old tube station. The double-decker with Chelsea players stopped right in front of us. Photographs. Film. Everyone so happy. Fans wedged on shop roofs. Almost hysteria. Chelsea shirts everywhere. A wonderful weekend.
2022.
I made good time heading East. The roads were clear. As I was lifted over the Chiswick flyover, we all spotted the Wembley Arch a few miles to the north. Maybe it thrills the current generation in the same way the Twin Towers used to thrill others…
In the pub against Wolves, some friends from the US – step forward Chad, Josh and Danny – said we could kip in their AirB’n’B for the Saturday night. The plan was, originally, for me to drive up and back and therefore be unable to partake in a few bevvies. This kind offer solved that problem. But this wasn’t just any AirB’n’B…this was a little studio flat right underneath the old Shed Wall at Stamford Bridge.
“From Stamford Bridge To Wembley” was about right.
But first a magic breakfast at a café in Hammersmith.
Sausages, fried eggs, baked beans, bacon, hash browns, mushrooms, two rounds of toast and a mug of Rosie Lea.
I looked over at PD.
“I say this so often. Hope this ain’t the high spot of the fucking day.”
We weren’t sure.
I drove to Baron’s Court, parked up, then we caught the tube to Fulham Broadway. We soon bumped into the Minnesota Triplets. We left our bags in the apartment and set off. The Americans were waiting, nervously, for their tickets to arrive via royal mail post.
Time for a photo outside the Bovril Gate.
“From Stamford Bridge To Wembley.”
I had planned a little pub-crawl that mirrored the one in 2018 that we had enjoyed before our win against Manchester United. We made our way to London Bridge. “The Mudlark” next to Southwark Cathedral was closed, so at just after 11am we made our way to one of London’s glorious pubs “The Old Thameside Inn” where we met up with Russ from Melbourne, the Kent boys, Steve from Salisbury, Dan from Devon and the three Americans. The weather was red hot. There were the usual laughs. After an hour or so, we sought shade in “The Anchor At Bankside”, another riverside favourite.
Six pints of “Peroni” hardly touched the sides.
But we were still all loathe to talk about the game.
Thankfully, I had seen very few Liverpool supporters at this point; just one in fact.
At around 2.15pm, we set off for Wembley. A Jubilee Line train from London Bridge took us straight up to Wembley Park, a repeat of 1997.
I lost PD and Parky, and walked with Steve up towards Wembley for a while. Whether it was because of the abhorrent abundance of half-and-half scarves being worn by many, or the fact that the famous vista of Wembley from distance is no longer as spine-chilling as in decades gone by, or just…well, “modern football”; I was having a bit of a downer to be honest.
Wembley is now absolutely hemmed in by flats, hotels, restaurants. There is no sense of place about the new gaff at all.
After my issues with getting in against Palace, this one was easy. No searches, straight in. I took the elevators up to the fifth level, with no bloody Scouser sliding in behind me like at the League Cup Final.
We were in ridiculously early, at about 3.30pm or so.
I was so pleased to Les from nearby Melksham. He had ‘phoned us, distraught, at 6.30am and asked us to keep an eye out for a spare. His ticket had gone ten rounds with his Hotpoint washing machine the previous evening and was much the worse for wear. Thankfully, he kept the stub – there’s a stub? – and Wembley were able to reprint it.
As the seats filled up around us, a surprising number of friends were spotted close by.
The two Bobs, Rachel and Rob, Kev, Rob Chelsea, Dave and Colin.
I was, in fact, in a Wembley section that was new to me; the north-east corner of the top tier. This would be my twenty-fourth visit to Wembley with Chelsea apart from the Tottenham away games. Of the previous twenty-three, I had only been seated in the lower deck on five occasions. And the East/West split has provided vastly differing fortunes.
The West End 14 : Won 11 and Lost 3
The East End 9 : Won 4 and Lost 5
So much for the lucky “tunnel” end. The West End at new Wembley was clearly our luckier-end.
Pah.
The seats – the ones in our end, or at least the ones in the lower tier, would be baking, with no respite from the sun – took ages to fill up. It annoyed the fuck out of me that every spare foot of balcony wall in the Liverpool end was festooned with red flags and banners. Our end was sparsely populated.
Chelsea tend to go for geographical locations on our flags honouring fan groups in various parts of the UK and beyond. Liverpool tend to go with white text on red honouring players and managers. Obviously, you never see St. George flags at Anfield, nor at Old Trafford for that matter.
The kick-off approached.
With about half an hour to go, we were introduced to a spell of deafening dance music from DJ Pete Tong, who was visible on the giant TV screens, seemingly having a whale of a time. The noise boomed around Wembley. This annoyed me. Rather than let fans generate our own atmosphere in that final build-up to the game, we were forced to listen to music that wasn’t football specific, nor relevant to anything.
It was utter shite.
“Pete Tong” infact.
With minutes to go, the Liverpool end was packed while our end had many pockets of empty red seats. Surely not the biggest ignominy of all? Surely we would sell all our Cup Final tickets? I had a worried few minutes.
The pre-match, the final moments, got under way.
The pitch was covered in a massive red carpet. Ugh. More bloody red.
I joined in with “Abide With Me” though many didn’t.
“In life. In death. Oh Lord. Abide with me.”
The only surprise was that said DJ didn’t mix it with a Balearic Anthem from the ‘eighties.
With the teams on the pitch, and Chelsea in all yellow – why? – it was now time for the national anthem. Again, I sang heartily along to this even though I am no fervent royalist. I wanted to be respectful and to add to the occasion.
With my awful voice booming out, I did not hear the Liverpool end booing it. But I was soon reliably informed by many that they were.
There was a time in the ‘seventies, at the height of the era of football fans revelling in being anti-social, that supporters often sang club songs over “God Save The Queen” but no team actually booed the national anthem at Cup Finals.
Liverpool seem to love doing it. It’s their “thing.” And while I can understand that some sections of the United Kingdom feel unloved and disenfranchised, it is this feeling among Liverpool Football Club supporters of them being “special cases” that grates with me and many. Do supporters of clubs from other currently and previously impoverished cities throughout England take such great pleasure in such “anti-Royal / anti-establishment” behaviour?
Save it for the ballot boxes, Liverpool fans.
Stop besmirching the name of your club and your city.
As Tracey Thorn once sang “narrow streets breed narrow minds” and there must be some awfully narrow streets around Anfield.
There were flames as the pre-match nonsense continued. It meant the opening minutes of the game was watched through a haze.
Those seats were still empty in our end.
FUCK.
We lined up as below :
Mendy
Chalobah – Silva – Rudiger
James – Jorginho – Kovacic – Alonso
Mount – Lukaku – Pulisic
A big game for Trevoh. A big game for Christian. A massive game for Romelu. Happy to see Mateo starting after his gruesome injury at Leeds United.
Liverpool began very brightly, attacking us in the east, and at the end of the first ten minutes I was supremely grateful that they were not one, or more, in front. They peppered our goal. We were chasing shadows and other clichés. However, Chalobah did well to recover and thump a goal-bound shot from Luis Diaz away from inside the six-yard box after Edouard Mandy had initially blocked the shot. A rebound was flashed wide. At the end of this opening flurry, I counted five decent attacks from the men in red.
We were hanging on.
Thankfully, ten minutes later, all of our seats were now occupied.
That temptation of “one last pint” at Marylebone is always a tough one.
I have often thought that our current team lacks a little personality, undoubtedly compared to certain teams that we have known and loved over the years. It often feels the current crop are missing charisma – even Quaresma would be half-way there – and I really wanted the team to show some mettle and get back into this game. The Liverpool fans were by far the loudest in the opening quarter and I wanted us, the fans, to show some charisma too.
We improved, both on and off the pitch.
A decent move down the right, probably the best of the match thus far, involving James and Mount set up Pulisic but his delicate shot rolled just wide of the far post. Next up, Pulisic set up Alonso but Alisson blocked after a heavy first touch from our raiding wing-back,
Chelsea were now much louder while Liverpool had quietened down considerably. It became a cagier game in the last part of the first-half, but I thought it a good game. This is however based on the fact that we weren’t getting pummelled, that we were in it.
My worst, worst, nightmare was for us to lose…pick a number…3-0? 4-0? 5-0?
But this was fine. Silva was looking as dominant as ever. With him in the team, we had a chance right?
More of the same please, Chelsea.
Into the second-half, we blitzed Liverpool in the opening few minutes, mirroring what had had happened in the first-half, though with roles reversed.
A smart move allowed Alonso, always a threat to opposing teams in the opposition box, but so often a threat to us in our own box, drilled one wide. Pulisic then wriggled and weaved but Alisson again foiled him. The scorer against Arsenal in 2020 – a game I often forget about for obvious reasons – was getting into good positions but needed to find the corners.
The third of three decent chances in the first five minutes of the second-half came from a free-kick from a tight angle, with Alonso slamming a direct hit against the crossbar.
“Fucksakechels.”
The wing-backs were often the focal points, and we were finding space in wide areas. This was good stuff.
Diaz screwed one just wide.
“CAREFREE” absolutely boomed around Wembley.
A young lad standing behind me initiated a loud “Zigger Zagger”; good work, mate.
We were in this game. All along, I had toyed with the Football Gods by silently wishing for a penalty shoot-out win as revenge for this season’s League Cup Final defeat.
The game continued, but we couldn’t quite keep the attacks going. There were only half-chances. But I still thought it a decent tight game.
On sixty-six minutes, N’Golo Kante replaced Kovacic.
Diaz, again a threat, bent one wide of the far post.
A few players were looking tired now, as was I. My feet were killing me. With less than ten minutes to go, Diaz cut in on our left and slammed a shot against Mendy’s near post.
A largely ineffectual Lukaku was replaced by Hakim Ziyech with five minutes to go.
A deep cross from the horrible Milner, on as a substitute, evaded everyone and David Robertson hot the back post. Another curler from Diaz always looked like going wide. It is so weird that even from one-hundred yards away, the trajectory of shots can be surmised.
I guess I watch a lot of live games, eh?
The referee blew up for full-time.
My wish for penalties – down our end please – looked a strong possibility.
The red end sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” before the first-period of extra-time and we prepared for an extra thirty-minutes of terror.
Football, eh?
More tired bodies on the pitch and up in The Gods. The two periods of fifteen minutes were not of high quality. Were both teams hanging on for penalties? Were we all?
We went close from a cross on the right but a Liverpool defender hacked it away before Pulisic could make contact. I loved how Kante chased down a Liverpool attack out on their right. What a player.
I painfully watched as Alonso just didn’t have the legs, try as he might, to match the pace of his marker as a ball was pushed past him.
Dave replaced Chalobah and Ruben replaced Pulisic.
The players were now dead on their feet and so was I.
Then, a bizarre substitution in the last minute of the game.
Ross Barkley for Ruben.
I think that I last saw him at Bournemouth, pre-season.
The referee blew up.
Another 0-0.
I got my penalties, and – thankfully – at our end too. I hoped that Liverpool would lose in the most tragic way possible.
Alas, alas…
We began OK with Alonso striking home. Then Thiago scored. Dave hit the post and our world caved in. I was dumbstruck as I saw more than a few Chelsea fans walk out. Wankers. We then exchanged goals – James, Barkley, Jorginho – with Liverpool but with their last kick, Sadio Mane’s strike was saved low by Mendy.
Hugs with the stranger next to me.
He beamed : “That’s for those that walked out.”
Sudden-death now.
Ziyech : in.
Jota : in.
Mount : saved.
Tsimikas : in.
We were silent. The Liverpool end roared. Red flares cascaded down onto the pitch. We trudged silently out, up to Wembley Park, a horrendous wait in a warm train, oh my bloody feet, and back – trying to rely on gallows humour to get us through – eventually to Earl’s Court for a few drinks and some food. It was our year in 1997 but not in 2022.
Nor 2021.
Nor 2020.
Three FA Cup Final defeats in a row. We have now played in sixteen of them, winning eight and losing eight. After our dominance from 2007 to 2012 – four wins – we need our fucking lucky West end back.
The three of us eventually got back to Fulham Broadway at about 10.30pm and met up with Josh, Chad and Danny.
From Wembley to Stamford Bridge, the return journey over, we fell asleep under The Shed Wall.
My alarm sounded at 5.45am on the day of the League Cup Final. With all of the recent news from Ukraine that had sadly dominated everyone’s thoughts, I think it is safe to say that I was not wholly ready for the game at Wembley against Liverpool. I wasn’t particularly focussed. Far from it. The horrific scenes from Ukraine – and the national capital of Kiev specifically, a city that I had visited only three years ago with Chelsea – had dominated my thoughts for the previous few days. Football seemed a frivolous pursuit. In fact, my thoughts about the game were quite similar to those that I had felt for the 2015 League Cup Final against Tottenham. Just three days previously, I had lost my dear mother.
On both occasions, my mind was elsewhere, way elsewhere.
On that Sunday seven years ago, we travelled up to London by train. In 2022, we travelled up by car. I collected PD at 7am and Parky not long after. It would be our third drive to London in nine days, but only the second to involve a game.
Last Tuesday, the three of us had arrived in London at our usual parking space on Normand Road at around 5.45pm for the Champions League game against Lille, but PD – who had been feeling ropey during the last thirty-minutes of his drive to London – suddenly felt very ill indeed. He felt sick, experienced hot sweats but was also shaking with the cold too. Without too much thought, I knew we had to get him home. I jumped into the driving seat of his car and drove us back west. Our stay in London had lasted five minutes. Thankfully, PD improved a little on the drive home. By the time I eventually reached my house, the game at Stamford Bridge was approaching half-time. Our eventual two-nil win was met with a little indifference from me. I was more concerned about PD.
Bizarrely, this followed on from my “ghost” trip to London for the Plymouth Argyle game in which I didn’t go in. Two trips to SW6 but no football. My next game at Chelsea is against Newcastle United in a couple of weeks. I hope I make it to my seat.
We had decided to stay over in London. The Premier Inn near Putney Bridge would be our home for the Sunday night. From 10am until about 3pm, we knocked back some ciders and lagers in three local boozers; “The Eight Bells”, “The King’s Arms” and “The Golden Lion”. In the last pub, we bumped into the former Chelsea midfielder Alan Hudson, himself a participant in a League Cup final for Chelsea against Stoke City, almost fifty years ago to the day.
We were adamant that we would arrive on time for this match at Wembley. However, the tube line between Putney Bridge and Earl’s Court wasn’t operating. Instead, we bit the bullet and cabbed it – past Stamford Bridge – to Marylebone Station. It was no surprise to see a few stragglers, a few familiar faces, outside the sports bar as we exited the taxi. We soon squeezed onto the 3.45pm train to Wembley Park. What should have been a twelve-minute journey, took nearer thirty. Our carriage was full of Chelsea, including a couple of lads from home. All eyes were on the clock. Suffice to say, we again struggled to get into Wembley on time.
The game was due to start at 4.30pm.
We made our way around to the eastern end. At least there was no queue and a minimal security check. On the way in, a Scouser in his twenties squeezed-in behind Parky as he scanned his ticket. Old habits die hard, I guess. I uttered two choice words to him as we all ascended the escalator.
Time was against me.
Race, race, race.
I managed to reach my seat while the players of both teams were taking the knee.
Despite my alarm waking me at 5.45am, I was in with just five seconds to spare.
Bloody hell.
We had heard that Romelu Lukaku wasn’t chosen in the starting eleven while we were on the train. No surprise really. It would have been my choice too.
Mendy
Chalobah – Silva – Rudiger
Alonso – Kante – Kovacic – Azpilicueta
Mount – Havertz – Pulisic
I had consistently said to Chelsea mates, old school friends, work colleagues and the like that I expected us to lose this. Although our two league meetings were even games and hotly contested, it felt like we have gone off the boil of late. In fact, in Abu Dhabi I had prioritised the FIFA World Club Cup over this one. The Chelsea fans that I shared this with agreed with me.
The match began. Chelsea attacked the Scousers who were located in our usual end, an end that tends to be a “lucky” one for us.
The game was a cracker, eh?
On so many occasions, our recent Cup Final appearances at Wembley have tended to be dull affairs. But here was a contest that was at last an open and entertaining match for one and all.
It was a wild start to the game. Christian Pulisic was fed in by Dave. His snap shot was too close to the Liverpool ‘keeper with the unpronounceable first name. The chance went begging.
Liverpool then attacked at will. On one occasion, Mo Salah was closely marked by four Chelsea defenders. All eyes were on him, but elsewhere Liverpool were a threat.
It can be a sobering experience to watch Chelsea at Wembley. At home games, I have managed to get acclimatised to periods of quiet in The Sleepy Hollow. It’s not an ideal scenario but I’m used to it by now. Not many of the fifty or so spectators who sit near me get too involved. They have their moments, but these seem more fleeting as the years go by. At away games, it’s a different story. A far more uplifting experience. There’s nothing like cheering the team on in a packed and exuberant away section. At Wembley – and this has happened on far too many occasions for my liking – I soon get exasperated by those nearby who don’t support the team. Two lads in their early thirties alongside Parky were a case in point. No singing, no encouragement, no clapping. It was the same story with a couple in front. Nothing.
I couldn’t resist a loud “song sheets are available.”
Thankfully, a good group of singers to my left restored my faith in humanity.
Down below me, Mane headed well-wide from Alexander-Arnold. It felt like Liverpool were dominating much of the first twenty minutes, thirty minutes, but we managed the occasional counter-thrust. At no stage did I feel we would buckle to their attacks.
On the half-hour, we witnessed an amazing double-save from Edouard Mendy. First, a low shot from Keita was parried by a dive, and our ‘keeper then managed to reconfigure the neutrons, protons and electrons in his body to readjust his limbs and deflect Mane’s close-range effort over the bar. There were immediate memories of Jim Montgomery in the 1973 FA Cup Final.
It was a breath-taking piece of football.
The atmosphere, despite some good quality fare being played out on the Wembley pitch, was a little underwhelming. The Liverpool anthems “You’ll never walk alone” and “The fields of Anfield Road” occasionally boomed from the western end. “Carefree” was our main reply. In the big spaces of Wembley, it’s difficult to generate anything more intricate. The Mendy song, as an example, didn’t stand a chance.
Kai Havertz played in Pulisic, but his finish was again too close to Kelleher. A rising shot from Dave didn’t threaten the Irish ‘keeper either.
Chelsea were breaking nicely, with good mobility and a sense of freedom, and Havertz played in Mount just as the first-half was closing. His prod at goal was rather poor and the ball was sent wide. From a central position near the penalty spot, he really should have done better.
No goals at the break.
“Happy with that. Playing much better than I had predicted.”
The second-half began with Chelsea playing towards us in the eastern end of Wembley. A fantastic ball from Pulisic found the equally excellent run from Mount. The whole world seemed to stop. From inside the box, one on one with the ‘keeper, Mount struck.
The ball rebounded off the near post.
Fackinell.
Dave was injured, but on came Reece James to huge applause.
Another injury occurred when Keita and Trevoh Chalobah clashed in the middle of the pitch. From my vantage point high in the top tier, I had no real view of the incident. But Chalobah stayed down the longest.
The atmosphere was better now. Our end was showing some kind of unity.
“And it’s super Chelsea.”
A terrible clearance from Mendy allowed Liverpool to break in acres of space. The ball was worked to Salah who clipped the ball past the onrushing ‘keeper, trying to atone for his mistake. Thankfully, the reassuring figure of Thiago Silva appeared and hacked the ball away.
Not long after, a quickly-taken free-kick was pumped towards the area past our far post. A Liverpool header back across goal was headed in.
Ugh.
The Liverpool end roared.
There were red flares. They had scored the all-important first goal.
Our end was silent.
But then, after what seemed like an age, we saw that VAR was being called upon.
No goal.
Why? Was the first header from an offside position? Who knows.
A double substitution on seventy-three minutes.
Timo Werner for Pulisic.
Romelu Lukaku for Mount.
At around this time, the announcer at Wembley did something that I have never witnessed at a game in the UK before; he effectively did an in-game commercial for Carabao. Well, you can imagine my reaction.
Fackinell.
A cracking save by Mendy from Diaz drew more applause from our end. This was a really open game. Kante and Kovacic covered so much ground in our midfield. Alonso was always looking to stretch Liverpool’s right flank. Our defensive three rarely looked troubled. A ball was lobbed into the inside-left channel for Werner to attack. His fine cross was headed in by Havertz but – after a nano-second – we realised that an offside flag was raised.
Another magnificent save from Mendy kept us in it; a towering leap from Van Dijk was followed by a downward header but a stretching save kept it out.
Inside my head : “Mendy man of the match so far.”
Right at the death, Alonso did so well to shake off attention and rifle in a cross towards the near post but a shake of the leg from Lukaku and a flick was parried by Kelleher.
We had been standing for an hour and three quarters. We would be standing for thirty minutes more.
Extra time.
A magnificent ball in the channel from the excellent Chalobah found Lukaku, who advanced, stopped, settled himself and tucked the ball home.
We screamed. But then, the grim realisation that a flag had been waved.
Bollocks.
For Lukaku to score right in front of the Scousers would have been utterly perfect.
The night had fallen now, and the underside of the Wembley roof was picked out in yellow and blue in a show of solidarity with the people of Ukraine. The arch was yellow and blue too.
The game entered its final fifteen minutes.
My legs were aching and my throat was parched.
“Come on Chelsea. Come on Chelsea. Come on Chelsea. Come on Chelsea.”
A precise move involving Lukaku and Alonso in a tight area on our left allowed our much-maligned Spaniard to drill a pass to Havertz. His neat finish was soon flagged for offside too.
“God. Three times.”
Late on, Kepa replaced Mendy, a repeat of Belfast in August.
The game continued to its conclusion.
0-0.
The dreaded penalties. I didn’t like it that they were to be taken at their end.
“Munich was the other end though. And Belfast.”
“I fancy our chances here, Paul.”
There then ensued the best part of fifteen minutes of more drama. Pure drama? Maybe. They were all fantastic penalties to be honest. The agony continued after no misses in ten attempts. We went to sudden death. Kick after kick.
It went to 10-10.
Time for the two ‘keepers.
Alas, it was not to be.
Kelleher : hit.
Kepa : miss.
We fell silent once again.
The arch turned red.
We returned to Marylebone, then back to Fulham. Our last four domestic Cup Finals have ended in defeat now. I can hardly believe it.
Next up, Luton away in the cup that matters. I’ll see some of you there.
My match report for the home game against Everton in March of last year – a really fine 4-0 win – ended with a typical few words.
“Right. Aston Villa away on Saturday. See you there.”
Then, as we all know too dearly, life – and football – changed. The corona virus that had first been spoken about just after Christmas in 2019, almost in a semi-humorous way at the start, took hold and started claiming victims at an alarming rate. A global pandemic was on our hands. Very soon the United Kingdom was placed in lockdown, a situation that none of us could have ever envisioned witnessing in person during our lives.
Suddenly and without too much thought, football seemed of little real relevance to me.
The trials and tribulations of Chelsea Football Club in particular seemed small compared to the news appearing on my TV screen, on my phone and laptop. As friends found their own way of coping with the surreal nature of lock down, and then being furloughed from work, I quickly realised that football, Chelsea in particular, was way down my list of priorities.
I simply had other, more serious, issues to deal with. And this is how my thought process, my coping mechanism, remained for weeks and weeks. While others pushed for football to return I simply asked myself :
Why?
It was irrelevant, for me, to concern myself with millionaires playing football.
Eventually after a prolonged break, when the football season began again in the middle of June, I had become emotionally distanced from the sport and from Chelsea too. I had simply turned inwards, as did many; working from home, travelling as little as I could manage and trying not to impact – socially – on the outside world. I joked that I had been practising for this moment my entire life. Earlier in my life, I was the ultimate shy boy.
But the noisemakers in the game and the media were adamant that it would be a major moral boost for the nation to see football return.
How?
It just didn’t sit well with me, this notion of football to be seen as the great saviour. Other priorities seemed to overshadow it. I just could not correlate what I was hearing in the media about football and what I was feeling inside.
I will not lie, I absolutely hated watching the games on TV, with no fans, in silence, and I became more and more distanced from the sport that I had loved with each passing game. I watched almost with a sense of duty, nothing more. What had been my lifeblood – to an almost ridiculous level some might say, and with some justification – just seemed sterile and distant. I have very few memories of those games in the summer.
The FA Cup Final seemed particularly difficult to watch. On a hot day in August, I mowed the lawn, and even did some work in my home office for an hour or two, and then sat alone to see us score an early Christian Pulisic goal but then be over-run by a revitalised Arsenal team. That result hurt of course, and I was annoyed how some decisions went against us. The sad injury to Pedro – a fine player for us over five years – in the last kick of the game seemed to sum up our horrible misfortune that day. However, and I know this sounds funny and odd, but I was pleased that I was hurting. That I still cared.
But by the evening, the loss was glossed over.
Football still didn’t seem too important to me.
The one positive for me, and one which combines my own particular brand of OCD – Obsessive Chelsea Disorder – married with a possible smidgeon of shallowness, was the fact that I didn’t have to delete the games I had witnessed in 2019/20 from both my games spreadsheet and – gulp – this blog site.
A small victory for me, and I needed it.
Off the field, work was becoming particularly stressful for me. In August I came oh-so close to handing in my notice. The workload was piling up, I was battling away, and I was getting some worrying chest pains again.
In mid-September, the new season began and I openly hoped for a new approach from me. There was nothing up in the air here; we knew games would be played behind closed doors, we knew the score from the start. I renewed my NOWTV package to allow me to see most of our games. We began the league campaign at Brighton. For some reason, I didn’t see the game, I can’t remember why not. The first match I witnessed on TV was the home defeat to Liverpool.
It was no good. I could not deny it. I was as distanced as ever. The hold that Chelsea Football Club had on me for decades was under threat.
Conversely – at last some fucking positivity – as soon as my local team Frome Town started playing friendlies and then league games, I was in football heaven. I especially remember a fantastic pre-season friendly against Yeovil Town two days before Chelsea’s game at Brighton. A warm Thursday evening and a capacity 400 attendance, a fine game with friends, just magnificent. In September and October, I attended many a Frome Town game including aways at Mangotsfield United in Bristol – it felt so good to be back home in my living room uploading photos just an hour after the game had finished, a real positive – and on a wet night in Bideford in North Devon. Home gates were significantly higher than the previous season. There was a magnificent sense of community at the club. There had even been a tremendous crowd-funder to raise £25,000 in April to keep the club going. We even had a little FA Trophy run – before being expelled for refusing to play an away tie in an area with a high infection rate. Soon after, the club’s records for a second successive season were expunged and that early season flourish was put on hold until 2021/22.
But for a month, I was felling inexorably closer to Frome Town than to Chelsea. It seemed that my entire world was turning in on myself.
Was the world changing?
On Saturday 10 October it certainly did. For the second time in a few days I experienced chest pains. There had been a similar attack in my bed and breakfast in Bideford on Thursday morning. That drive home was horrible. I wanted to be brave enough to phone for a doctor. On the Saturday, I knew I had to act. I phoned the emergency services and – to cut a very long story to a quick few lines – I was whisked into a local hospital in Bath. On the Sunday, I was told that I had suffered a mild heart attack, and on Monday I underwent an operation to have two stents fitted into my heart. My Tuesday afternoon, I was home again.
I remained off work for five weeks, and slowly returned in stages. A half-day here, a half-day there. I remained calm throughout these weeks. I knew, deep down, that something had been wrong but being a typical bloke, decided to let things slide and hope for the best. Since then, I have improved my lifestyle; decaffeinated coffee – boo! – and healthier food, more exercise and all of the associated improvements that go with it.
With all this going on, Chelsea seemed even more remote. I was momentarily cheered when fans were allowed back inside Stamford Bridge, and that for a few hours we were top of the table after Leeds United were despatched. For a fleeting moment, it seemed that Frank Lampard, who had teased a very creditable fourth place finish in July out of his youngsters, was now able to similarly nurture his new signings too. But there had been failings in 2020/21 too. Our defence was at times calamitous. But I was solidly behind Frank all of the way. I really felt for him. Back in March, with Billy Gilmour the new star, we had enjoyed quite wonderful wins over Liverpool and Everton. There was positivity, hope and the future looked utterly pleasing.
Then the pandemic struck. Damn you COVID19.
In December and early January our form dipped alarmingly. I watched Frank’s interviews through my fingers. It was not pleasant viewing. It saddened me that so many rank and file Chelsea supporters, across all demographics – from old school fans in England to younger ones abroad – had seen fit to kindly forget the “I don’t care if we finish mid-table for a couple of seasons, let’s build a future with our youngsters” mantra in August 2019.
It got to the stage where I didn’t want Chelsea to simply win games but to simply win games for Frank.
I had returned full-time to work in mid-January. To their credit my employer has been first rate throughout my ordeal. While I was in the office on a day in late January, it was sadly announced that Frank Lampard had been sacked. I was numbed yet not at all surprised. I firstly hated the decision for reasons that are probably not difficult to guess. So much for long termism, eh Chelsea?
My interest in the exploits of Chelsea Football Club probably reached an all-term low. Or at least since the relegation season of 1978/79 when we were shocking throughout and I was being pulled away from football with a new interest in music and other teenage distractions.
Thomas Tuchel?
A nerdy-looking chap, skeleton thin, probably a diamond with Powerpoint and with a marginally worse hairstyle than me? I wished him well but football again seemed distant.
Our form improved but the football itself seemed sterile. I was still struggling.
On a Saturday in March, I debated whether or not I had time to go off on a ten mile walk to a local village and get back in time to watch play at Elland Road. I considered binning the football in favour of my new found enjoyment of walks in the surrounding winter Somerset countryside. In the end I compromised; I went for a walk on the Sunday.
I know what I found most enjoyable.
Of late, our form has really improved. Again, I haven’t seen every game. But we look a little more coherent, defensively especially. Apart from an odd blip, to be honest, the results since the new manager took over have been sensational even if many of the ways of getting those results have lacked a certain “I know not what.”
Pizazz? Style?
I’m being mean. The bloke has done well. I like his self-effacing humour, his humble approach. He has started to grow in me (Parky : “like a fungus”).
Of late, our progress in the latter stages of the Champions League has been the most impressive part of our recent resurgence. And yet this competition has been haunting me all season long. In a nutshell, the thought of us reaching our third European Cup Final and – being selfish here, I know it – me not being able to attend is a nightmare.
(OK, not a nightmare. I know. I know 127,000 people have lost their lives due to COVID19. That is the real nightmare. I realise that. This is just football. Just football.)
I shrugged off last August’s FA Cup Final. I coped remarkably well with that. I soon decided that I could even stomach missing a second-successive one this year. But the thought of us lifting the big one for a second time and me – and others – not being there is bloody purgatory.
So, it was with a heady mix of genuine pride and impending sadness that accompanied the glorious sight of us beating a hideously poor Real Madrid side over two-legs to reach the final.
But that spectacle, or debacle, needs another chapter devoted to it. And it doesn’t seem right to talk too much about that at this time. In fact, going into the weekend I assured myself that I would not dwell too much about the 2021 European Cup Final. Let’s be honest here; the twin crushing of the hated European Super League and the farcical and immoral desire of UEFA to send 8,000 UK citizens to Portugal in the midst of a global pandemic warrants a book, a Netflix series even, all by themselves.
Let’s talk about the FA Cup.
For those readers of this blogorama who have been paying attention, I have been featuring the visit of my grandfather Ted Draper to Stamford Bridge for the 1920 FA Cup Final between Aston Villa, his team, and Huddersfield Town. This is a work of fiction since I only know that my grandfather once visited Stamford Bridge, but was never able to remember the game. Suffice to say, in the report of the home game against Liverpool last March, I continued the story.
After a break of fourteen months, a re-cap.
On Saturday 24 April 1920, on this very same site, if not this very same stadium – but certainly one which was in situ for the 1982 game, those lovely packed terraces – my grandfather stood on the great slug of the West terrace with his old school friend Ted Knapton alongside him. It was half-time, and the score between the two teams – Aston Villa, who he favoured, and Huddersfield Town – was 0-0. It had been an exhilarating game of football for my grandfather, though the spectacle of seeing fifty-thousand spectators in one sports ground had proved to be the one abiding memory that he would take away with him.
Fifty thousand people.
And virtually all were men, and so many had fought in the Great War.
My grandfather was twenty-five years old. He silently gazed out at the main stand on the far side, the open terraces behind each goal, and looked behind him at row after row of fellows in caps and hats, some with the colourful favours of the two competing teams. A claret and blue rosette here. A light blue hat there.
Fifty-thousand men.
It struck home.
My grandfather had just that week spotted a local girl, a few years younger than him, who was beginning work in the manor house of his home village. She was a young cook, with a lovely smile, and had caught his eye.
My grandfather was a rather quiet man. He looked out at all those faces. He did not speak to his friend Ted, but he – at Stamford Bridge on Cup Final day 1920 – had decided that the stadium, indeed the whole of England was full of men, and the thought of one of them asking the young cook out before he had a chance to utter a shy “hello” ate away at him.
He had survived the Great War. He lived in a great village and now this great spectacle had stirred him in a way that he had not expected.
“You had better get your act together, Ted Draper. On Monday at lunch time, I think I will ask Blanche if she would like to accompany me to next weekend’s village dance. I can’t be second in that race.”
I was so annoyed that I could not continue this story last season. The team did their part, defeating Manchester United in a semi-final, but of course there was no Cup Final Tale in which I could tie up rather conveniently tie up the end of my 1920 story on the centenary.
Thankfully, good old Chelsea, the team defeated Manchester City in this season’s semis to enable me to continue and to honour my grandfather again.
The quality of the play down below on the surprisingly muddy Stamford Bridge pitch deteriorated throughout the second-half. But Ted Draper, along with his friend Ted Knapton, were still enthralled by the cut and thrust of the two teams. The players, wearing heavy cotton shirts, went into each tackle with thunderous tenacity. And the skill of the nimble wide players caught both of their eye.
“Ted, I wonder what the crowd figure is here today. There are a few spaces on the terracing. I suspect it would have been at full capacity if Chelsea had won their semi-final against the Villa.”
“I think you are right. What’s the capacity here? I have heard it said it can hold 100,000.”
“Bugger me.”
“Trust Chelsea to mess it up.”
“Yes. Good old Chelsea.”
The crowd impressed them. But they were not too impressed with the swearing nor the quite shocking habit of some spectators to openly urinate on the cinder terraces.
“To be honest Ted, I haven’t seen any lavatories here have you?”
“I’m just glad I went in that pub before we arrived.”
The play continued on, and the crowd grew restless with the lack of goals. The programme was often studied to match the names of the players with their positions on the pitch. With no goals after ninety-minutes, there was a short break before extra-time, and more liquid cascaded down the terraces.
“Like a bloody river, Ted.”
After ten minutes of the first period of extra-time, Aston Villa broke away on a fast break and the brown leather ball held up just in time for the inside-right Billy Kirton to tuck the ball past Sandy Mutch in the Huddersfield goal. There was a mighty roar, and Ted Draper joined in.
The Aston Villa supporters standing nearby flung their hats into the crowd and many of the bonnets and caps landed on the sodden floor of the terracing.
“Buggered if I’d put those things back on my head, Ted.”
There then followed a period of back-slapping among the Villa die-hards, and Ted Draper was very pleased that his team had taken the lead. The game stayed at 1-0, with both teams tiring in the last part of the match. The crowd stayed until the end, transfixed. There was just time to see the Aston Villa captain Andy Ducat lift the silver trophy on the far side. The teams soon disappeared into the stand.
With a blink of an eye, the game was done, the day was over, and Somerset was calling.
As the two friends slowly made their way out of the Stamford Bridge stadium, Ted Knapton – who favoured no team, but had picked the Huddersfield men for this game – spoke to my grandfather.
“That goal, Ted.”
“What of it?”
“It looked offside to me.”
“Not a chance, not a chance Ted. The inside-right was a good half-inch onside.”
“Ah, you’re a bugger Ted Draper, you’re a bugger.”
On Cup Final Day 2021, I was up early, a good ninety minutes ahead of the intended 8am alarm clock. One of my first tasks was to swab my mouth and nose. Now there’s a phrase that I never ever thought that I would utter on a Cup Final morn. Part of the protocol for this game, the biggest planned event to take part in the UK since lockdown in March 2020, was that all attendees should take a lateral flow test at an official centre from 2.15pm on Thursday 13 May. I was lucky, I was able to work a late shift on the Friday and I travelled to Street for my test. The negative result soon came through by email. We also were advised, though not compulsory, to take a test at home on the morning of the game and five days after the event in order for data to be gathered. A small price to pay.
This felt odd. To be going to a game after so long. I took some stick from a few people that saw me comment that my love of football was being rekindled.
“Chelsea get to two cup finals and all of a sudden Chris Axon loves football again.”
I laughed with them.
The joy of football had been rekindled because I was now able to see a live game. There are many ways for people to get their kick out of football. By playing, by writing, by watching on TV, by refereeing, by betting, by coaching, by fantasy leagues. By I get my kick through live football.
It has been my life.
I posted the carton with the vial containing my swab at Mells Post Office just after I left home at 10.30am. I was genuinely excited for the day’s events to unfold. Outside the same post office a few days earlier, I had announced to two elderly widows of the village – Janet and Ann – that I was off to the FA Cup Final a few days earlier.
“I have missed it badly.”
They both smiled.
And I realised that this final tie of the Football Association Challenge Cup represented a final tie to my childhood – I am known around the village as a Chelsea supporter – and it also represented a nod to the tie that Chelsea Football Club has on me.
But did it really represent one last chance to bring me back in from the cold?
I know that I needed something to help me regain my love of the game before my dislike of VAR, obscenely-overpaid players, ever-changing kick-off times, blood-sucking agents, the continuing indifference to game-going fans despite the limp platitudes that might suggest otherwise, the threat of the thirty-ninth game, knobhead fans, the disgraceful behaviour of UEFA and FIFA in so many aspects of their stance on so many things (I have already decided I am not watching a single second of the Qatar World Cup) all combine in one horrible mixture to turn me away even more.
I have aired all this before. As well you know.
No pressure, Chelsea.
Vic Woodley.
On my way to collect Lord Parky, my sole companion on this foray back to normality, I passed near the village of Westwood. Until recently, I was unaware – as were many – that this is the final resting place of our former ‘keeper Vic Woodley. There is a group on Facebook that actively try to locate the graves of former players and on occasion headstones are purchased if there are unmarked graves. It is an admirable cause. Two Saturdays ago, I placed some blue and white flowers on the grave. Although it is open to debate, I would suggest that until 1955, Vic Woodley was our most successful player at Chelsea.
Hughie Gallacher was probably our most famous player, George Smith had played more games and George Mills had been our record goal scorer.
But Woodley had played 252 games for Chelsea and 19 for England. He was in our team for the Moscow Dynamo game in 1945 too.
I vote for Vic Woodley.
I soon passed The Barge pub, on the outskirts of Bradford on Avon where he was a landlord in later years.
We must pay a visit when normality returns.
Parky soon reminded me that he had heard of his Uncle Gerald, a Derby County fan, talk about Vic Woodley – who played thirty times for Derby before moving to Bath City – living locally when Parky was younger. Parky also recounted meeting a chap in nearby Melksham who had been at that Moscow Dynamo game just after the Second World War.
1994 And 2021.
I had collected Parky at 11am. His first task had been to replicate a photo of me setting off outside Glenn’s house in Frome before the drive to the 1994 FA Cup Final. I wanted a little comparison. Me at 28 and me at 55.
This would be my eleventh FA Cup Final that I will have attended. The twenty-eight year old me what have laughed at such a notion.
We had a lovely natter on the way up. We hardy stopped chatting. Sadly, neither Glenn nor PD could make it up but we promised to keep them in our thoughts. Our route took us towards High Wycombe before we doubled back on the M40. This was quite appropriate since a very well-known and popular supporter at Chelsea, Wycombe Stan, had recently passed away. He was well-loved by all and will be sadly missed at Chelsea. Stan has featured in these reports a few times. A smashing bloke.
RIP Wycombe Stan.
I had purchased a pre-paid parking slot for £20 only a ten-minute walk from the stadium. Traffic delays going in meant that we didn’t arrive much before 3pm, but it felt good, for once, to not have to race like fools to get in to a Cup Final. Those “last pints” on Cup Final day are legend.
The environs around modern Wembley Stadium are much different than as recently as 2007, the first final at the new place. Flats and hotels abound. It is very much a retail village first, a sporting venue second. We bumped into two Chelsea fans on the walk to the stadium. Gill B. said that the place was full of Leicester, that there were hardly any Chelsea present yet. I knew of two Leicester City season ticket holders who were attending the final and one had said that most of their fans were arriving on an armada of coaches. Gill R. wasn’t planning on meeting up with anyone, but as we turned a quiet corner, she shouted out : ”Chris!”
It was so lovely to see her. We chatted for quite a while, talking about the surreal nature of the past year, the sad departure of Frank, the whole nine yards. We both admitted we had not missed football as much as we had expected. Strange times.
At the southern end of what is now normally called “Wembley Way” – but was really called “Olympic Way” – the rather unsightly access slope has been replaced by steps, which I must admit remind me of an old style football terrace. But it is rather odd to see steps there. One supposes that crowd control has improved since the Ibrox disaster of 1971, but the straight rails, with no cross rails to stop surges, did bring a tremor to my memory banks. At least the steps do not immediately start near the stadium.
At the base of the steps, we scanned our match ticket and showed our test result email to Security Bod Number One.
In. Simple.
We neared the turnstiles at the eastern end – not our usual one – at around 3.30pm. Hardly anyone was around. We went straight in.
Thankfully, Security Bod Number Two didn’t react negatively to the sight of my camera and lenses.
Result. In.
For an hour and a half – the equivalent of a match – and by far the most enjoyable ninety minutes of the day, we chatted to many friends who we had not seen for fourteen months. I was driving, of course, so was not drinking. In fact, as I never drink at home, my last alcoholic intake was way back in September. But Parky, himself almost teetotal since June, was off the leash and “enjoying” the £6 pints. I updated many friends with the latest news regarding my health. I summed it up like this :
“I’ve had a good six months.”
There had been rumours of the whole game being played under constant rain. We were low down, row three and right behind the goal. If anyone was going to get wet, we were.
It was soon 5pm. A quick dash to the loo, things have improved since 1920. Within seconds I was spotting more familiar faces and I added to the gallery.
A Chelsea Gallery.
The Game.
The Cup Final hymn – Abide With Me – was sung and I sang along too. It is always so moving.
A quick look around. Most people in the lower tier. Team banners all over the south side of the top tier. A few people dotted around the middle tier and the north side of the top tier. Altogether surreal. Altogether strange. We had been gifted a Chelsea flag and a small blue bag was placed beneath the seat too. I didn’t bother to look in for a while. Time was moving on. I was starting to gear up for my first Chelsea game of the season and, possibly – only possibly – my last. Some fireworks, some announcements, the entrance of the teams. I spotted Prince William, a good man, and snapped away as he was introduced to the two teams.
“Oh bollocks. The teams. Who’s playing?”
I had been so busy chatting in the concourse that my mind had not given it a moment’s thought.
James in the middle three, Kepa in goal, Ziyech? Oh dear. I was amazed that Havertz was not playing. I was reminded last week that the young German’s first ever appearance at Wembley was in late 2016 against Tottenham. He came on as an eighty-sixth minute substitute for Bayer Leverkusen as they won 1-0. It was memorable for me too; I was there, tucked away among the Leverkusen hordes with my childhood friend Mario.
So, yes, the team.
Kepa.
James. Silva. Rudiger.
Dave. Kante. Jorginho. Alonso.
Mount. Werner. Ziyech.
I always say that I need a few games at the start of each season to get used to watching football again. To learn the habits, strengths and weaknesses of new players. To pace myself. To try to take it all in. Sadly, such a staggeringly low viewing position was of no use whatsoever. Everything was difficult. There was no depth. I really struggled.
And I really struggled with the latest dog’s dinner kit that the wonder kids at Nike have foisted upon us.
Does anybody like it?
To be honest, with players in motion the bizarre chequered pattern is not too discernible. It is only when players are still that the mess is fully visible. That the nasty pattern is continued onto the shorts without the merest hint of an apology makes it twice as bad. After getting it so right – sadly for one game – in 2020, the Nike folk thought that the yellow trim was obviously worth repeating.
Right. Enough of that. I’m getting depressed.
With only 12,500 fans of the competing clubs in the vastness of Wembley, it was so difficult to get an atmosphere going. For the first time in fourteen months, my vocal skills were tested. I joined in when I could. But it was all rather half-hearted.
The game began and we edged the opening spell quite easily with Mason Mount busy and involved. A couple of very early attacks down the right amounted to nothing. The rain was just about staying off.
Our loudest chant in the game thus far had been the statistically inaccurate “We’ve won it all”, a comment that Corinthians of San Paolo will note with a chuckle, as will the Saints of Southampton.
After a full quarter of an hour, an optimistic effort from Toni Rudiger flew tamely wide of the Leicester goal. A rare foray into our half saw a cross from Timothy Castagne for Jamie Vardy but Reece James blocked well. Chances were rare though. Mount advanced well but shot wide. An effort from Timo Werner replicated the curve of the arch overhead as his shot plopped into the area housing the Leicester fans.
We were clearly dominating possession but after a reasonable start we became bogged down with keeping the ball and trying to force our way in to Leicester’s well-drilled defence. I could almost hear the commentators describing the play. And it’s maybe a subtle new type of play too, possibly a side-effect of having no fans at games for over a year.
Watching on TV, and I admit I get so frustrated, I get bored to death of teams sitting back and letting teams pass in and around them. I watched some old footage from the ‘eighties recently, highlights of the 1982 and 1988 Scottish Cup Finals, and from the kick-off the teams were at each other. It was like watching a different sport. It was breathless, maybe not tactically pleasing, but it had me on edge and dreaming of another era.
Today there is just so much I can take of commentators talking about “the press, a low press, a high press, a high block, a low block, between the lines, transition, the counter, little pockets, passing channels.”
It seems that football is – even more – a sport watched by experts and critics rather than supporters. Yes, everyone seems more educated in tactics these days, but the repetition of some key phrases surely grates on me.
For the high priests of the high press, I sometimes wonder if they are even aware of how often they use this phrase during a normal match.
Players have always closed space and targeted weak spots, just as teams have in the past been happy to soak up pressure when needed. It just seems that teams do it all the time now. In every bloody game. And with no supporters in the stadium to inject some passion and intensity, I get drained watching training game after training game on TV.
A few long crosses and corners from the right did not trouble Schmeichel in the Leicester goal. His father was in the Manchester United goal in 1994. It infamously rained that day and just around the half-way mark of the first-half, the heavens opened. The omens were against us. My camera bag got drenched, my jacket was getting drenched. The blue cardboard bag from Chelsea was getting drenched.
Someone asked: “what’s in the goody bag?”
I replied “a return air ticket to Istanbul.”
Tuchel hurried back to the bench to get a blue baseball cap from his goody bag. Not sure if he had a metal badge too, though.
For twenty minutes, my photos stopped. I couldn’t risk my camera getting waterlogged. Leicester had a few rare forays towards us at the eastern end. I liked the look of Thiago Silva. Bizarrely, of course, these were my first sightings of Werner, Ziyech and Silva in a Chelsea shirt.
The rain slowed and I breathed a sigh of relief. I was in no mood for a “Burnley 2017.” Around me, the rain had dampened the fervour of our support. Leicester were beginning to be heard.
“Vichai had a dream. He bought a football team.
He came from Thailand and now he’s one of our own.
We play from the back.
And counter attack.
Champions of England. You made us sing that.”
Thankfully no mention of a high press.
The last real chance of the half, a poor-half really, fell to Caglar Soyuncu but his effort dropped wide of the far post.
At half-time, there were mutterings of disapproval in a Chelsea support that had quietened down considerably. Throughout that first-half, neither team had managed a shot on goal. But I tried to remain positive. I was buoyed by the pleasing sight of blue skies in the huge rectangular window above us…I hoped the clouds would not return.
No changes at the start of the second-half. I prayed for a winner at our end, just yards away from me.
The first effort of the second-half came from the head of Marcos Alonso, a surprising starter for many, who rose to meet a cross from N’Golo Kante but headed too close to Schmeichel. Leicester showed a bit of life, some spirit, but it was dour football.
Sadly, this was to change. Just after the hour, the ball was pushed square to Youri Tielemens who advanced – unchallenged, damn it – until he was around twenty-five yards out. As soon as the ball left his boot, from my vantage point, I knew it was in. Not even Peter fucking Crouch could have reached it. The Leicester end erupted.
Bollocks.
Five minutes later, Christian Pulisic for Hakim Ziyech and Ben Chilwell – loud boos – for Marcos Alonso. Pulisic immediately added a little spice and spirit. He seemed positive. Two more substitutions, Callum Hudson-Odoi for Azpilicueta and Kai Havertz, the slayer of Tottenham, for Jorginho. Our attack had stumbled all game but with fresh legs we immediately looked more interested.
The Leicester fans were in their element, raucous and buoyant. We tried to get behind the team.
“COME ON CHELSEA, COME ON CHELSEA, COME ON CHELSEA, COME ON CHELSEA.”
It didn’t exactly engulf the Chelsea end in a baying mass of noise.
Kante was strangely finding himself engaged as a supplier of crosses and one such ball was met by Chilwell but his strong downward header, coming straight towards me, was palmed on to his post by a diving Schemichel.
I was right in this game now; it had taken so long for us to get any momentum, but with time running out my eyes were on stalks, watching the ball and the players running – or not – into space.
“COME ON YOU BLUE BOYS.”
With eight minutes’ left, The Charge of the Light Brigade as Olivier Giroud raced on to replace a very disappointing Werner. It was the fastest any Chelsea player had run all game.
The Chelsea pressure increased. I didn’t even think about the stresses that might be induced should we score a late equaliser. But that’s good. I felt fine. No problems.
A delicate cross from James was knocked back to our Mase. He steadied himself momentarily and then let fly with his left foot. I was about to leap in joy. But Schmeichel flung himself to his left and clawed it out.
I called him a very rude name. Twice. Just to make sure he heard me.
In the closing minutes, a lofted ball – into space, what joy – found a rampaging Ben Chilwell. He met it first time, pushing it into the six-yard box. In the excitement of the moment, I only saw a convergence of bodies and then…GETINYOUFUCKER…the net bulge. I tried my damnedest to capture him running away in joy, but I needed to celebrate. I brushed past Parky and found myself in the stairwell. King Kenny virtually slammed me into the fence at the front – ha – but I kept my composure and snapped away. The results are, mainly blurred. A second or two later, I looked back and Kenny was screaming, his face a picture of joy, and the scene that I saw me was a virtual copy, with less people, of the aftermath of Marcos Alonso’s winner in 2017, a mere thirty yards further south.
I heard a voice inside my head.
“Fucking hell, Chris, we’ve done it.”
And then. Someone mentioned VAR. At first, I thought someone was being a smart-arse. Didn’t seem offside to me. Nah. And then I realised as I looked up at the large scoreboard above the Leicester City fans that the awful truth was for all to see.
A red rectangle…
VAR : CHECKING GOAL – POSSIBLE OFFSIDE.
My heart slumped. How often do these end up with the advantage being given to the attacking side?
Ironically, on the car drive in to London, both Parky and I quoted a recent game when Harry Kane’s toe was deemed to be offside and we both admitted that we felt for the bloke. When Chelsea fans are upset with a VAR decision is given against Tottenham, something is definitely up.
A roar from the other end, no goal.
King Kenny wailed : “what has football become?”
I had no answer.
Has anyone?
There is a chance that this might be my last report this season. It depends on how Chelsea Football Club looks after its own supporters’ hopes of reaching the Portuguese city of Porto in a fortnight.
On the train back to Lewes on New Year’s Day, after our 1-1 draw at Brighton, Glenn set me a question to consider.
“Who did we play in the first game of the last decade, then?”
It got me thinking.
“2009/10, the double season…mmm, I don’t think it was an away game…”
It took me a few seconds, but the memory of the day – if not the opposition – soon came to me.
“I know. I can remember. We were at home in the FA Cup on Saturday 3 January. It was my mother’s eightieth birthday, and we had stayed at the hotel at Stamford Bridge on the Saturday night. Can’t remember the opposition, though.”
It was Watford and we won 5-0. And it would be my mother’s last visit to Stamford Bridge.
On this day of our game with Nottingham Forest, a day when Chelsea Football Club would be looking back fifty years to our first ever F. A. Cup win in 1970, it seemed right that I would be looking back ten years to a game in the F. A. Cup too. Season 2009/10 was my second full campaign of these match reports and here are a few notes from that lovely day.
“Mum has been to Chelsea many times before and I guess she has been to The Bridge around twenty-five times…mainly in the 1974 to 1979 period, when Dad would drive us up from Somerset twice per season. Mum also went to games at Bristol Rovers, Bristol City and Swindon Town. The last game that Mum saw at Chelsea was the Birmingham match in 2005, our centenary championship. Happy memories.
I peered out of our hotel room down at the old Shed wall, the winter sun lighting up the South London horizon beyond. A few fans were already clutching Megastore bags.
With the cold weather showing no signs of letting up, we sat in the hotel foyer / bar area from 11am to 2.15pm. It was a lovely time. The place gradually filled-up with Chelsea fans. My two mates Glenn and Parky arrived at about 11.30am and we sat in a cosy corner with Ron Harris and Peter Bonetti, chatting about all sorts. Peter was there with his daughter and grand-son. We spoke about our shoddy form of late, but we didn’t let it spoil our time.
We left the hotel, coats buttoned, scarves on. We battled against the crowd. The 6,000 away fans were out in force. The weather was brutal, but Mum wasn’t complaining. There was the usual ten-minute wait to get inside the MHU. We managed to take the lift up to the top tier. Mum is in good health, but six flights of stairs is too much (sometimes for me). Once inside the stadium, it didn’t seem so cold. A full Shed End of away fans, but only three paltry flags. They didn’t make much noise. No balloons.
The big surprise that Anelka wasn’t playing and I wasn’t sure of the formation…was it not a “Christmas Tree” (with Malouda and Joe behind Sturridge)? To be honest, after three early goals, I was far from caring…whatever formation it was, it was definitely working. What attacking options down the left with Ashley and Zhirkov and Malouda. I was very pleased that Sturridge scored his first goal for us, but the other two goals were scrappy. Not to worry – coasting. I think I counted just two Watford shots in the entire first-half.
At half-time, more congratulatory handshakes and kisses for my mother. Anna brought us some coffees and Russ gave some mince pies. It was a lovely feeling for Mum to meet my match day mates.
Loads more Chelsea pressure in the second period and what a strike from Frank – especially for Mum. I was really impressed with the cool finish from Sturridge for his second goal…very nice. We all thought it a shame that Carlo took the lad off when he was “on” for his hat-trick.
The Chelsea support was quiet and were only really roused after each goal.
I was so pleased when I glimpsed Mum singing along to “Chelsea, Chelsea” to the tune of “Amazing Grace.” How sweet the sound. She could teach a few JCLs a lesson or two.
Carlo made a few substitutions but it stayed at five. I shan’t make any further comments about our performance because – after all – it was only Watford. I was impressed with Sturridge and Zhirkov. JT seemed intent on going on more mazy runs in the attacking third. Maybe he’s a frustrated striker. I’m convinced that one day he’ll score a goal of the season contender from forty yards. Towards the end, our former left-back Jon Harley (he of the scuttling runs) came on as a Watford substitute and was given one of the noisiest songs of the game. That was a nice touch. The “referee has added on a further five minutes” announcement was met with frost-bitten groans.
We walked back to the car, stopping off for a good old-fashioned plate of pie and chips and a mug of tea on the North End Road. We eventually thawed out. On the drive back home to Somerset, we listened to the FA Cup draw and I was elated that we face an away jaunt to Preston. At last a new stadium to visit (well, actually a very old stadium, but a first-time visit for me.)”
So, 1970, 2010 and 2020 linked already.
But there is more.
Going back to the notes for the game with Everton last season, played on the one-hundredth anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in the First World War, I introduced the story of my mother’s father, my grandfather, and his link to Stamford Bridge.
“My grandfather was a good sportsman. He played football for Mells and Vobster United and cricket for Mells. I remembered the black and white photographs of both sides, taken in around 1925, on display in a bedroom when I was a child. He was, apparently, the star of the cricket team, and after studying the scorebooks from that era – priceless items – I can vouch for this. However, a family friend would not be afraid to tell me that he had a mean temper on a cricket pitch. Quiet off the pitch, a bit of a demon on it. A familiar story for many I suppose.
For all of his adventures on both football and cricket pitches, though, there is one sporting story involving my grandfather that I have been enchanted about for decades. Once I chose Chelsea as my team in 1970, I can remember my grandfather telling me that he once visited Stamford Bridge with his great friend – and fellow Mells sportsman – Ted Knapton. It was, I am pretty convinced, the only football stadium that he ever visited.
My grandfather, however many times I pressed him, could not remember the teams involved though. But I know that he said he favoured Aston Villa – possibly a first love – as a child, and then latterly Newcastle United – through a friend. And I have often wondered if the two Teds, because of their association with Mells football, were gifted tickets for the 1920 FA Cup Final at Stamford Bridge between Villa and Huddersfield Town.
I am no detective, but that might be the answer.
Heaven knows, I have visualised his visit to Stamford Bridge in the ‘twenties so many times.
In later years, whenever I stood on The Shed, as part of that unhindered mass of terrace that originally swept all around the stadium, including the small paddock in front of the old East Stand, I had a wonderful feeling of being a physical part of the history of the club. Of a link with the past. I miss that terrace. It was immense, in more ways than one.
I wonder if my grandad stood here.”
I like the fact that, in addition to the club’s official celebration of the 1970 victory in 2020, I am going to be having my own private centenary celebration of 1920 too. This was the first of three consecutive years that our beloved Stamford Bridge was chosen to host the final tie of the Football Association Challenge Cup.
So, 1920, 1970, 2010 and 2020 all linked-up now.
I love the fact that I am the third generation of my family to have seen football at Stamford Bridge.
That feels just perfect.
As last season progressed, we were gifted three home ties in the F. A. Cup and so I was able to add to my flight of fancy concerning my grandfather. I include these below, taken out of the Nottingham Forest, Sheffield Wednesday and Manchester United match reports.
“My grandfather, being careful not to walk into the onrushing crowds as he picked his way along the pavement from the Walham Green tube station to the main entrance of Stamford Bridge, was approached on several occasions by Cockney ticket touts, offering the chance to watch from the main stand. His ticket, and that of his friend Ted, had been given their general admission tickets by the Somerset Football Association in lieu of their role in the running of their local team Mells and Vobster United, for whom they had both played for a few seasons. My grandfather’s brother Christopher also played both sports for the village. My grandfather wondered how the touts had managed to get their hands on these tickets. It was a surprise to him. This was his first football match, and he was simply unaware that such tickets would be available.
“No thank you. We have tickets.”
“OK governor. You want to sell them to me?”
This confused and surely bemused my grandfather. He thought to himself, simplistically, “how would we get in without tickets?” and he paused for a while with a look on his face which probably was more serious than it really should have been.
“No. No thanks. No – they are ours.”
His long-time pal chipped in :
“We’ve come from Somerset for this match. Why would we give them to you?” “
“On the Fulham Road, as I stopped for a bite to eat at the al fresco café, I looked up at a tablet of stone containg words that commemorated a visit by the Duchess of Wessex to the Oswald Stoll buildings – for ex-servicemen – in 2009. It mentioned a respect for the “fortitude and resilience” of those soldiers of both World Wars. I looked up and saw the sepia figures – “ghosts” – of Ted Draper and Ted Knapton marching purposefully towards Stamford Bridge for the 1920 FA Cup Final.”
“Almost one hundred years ago, on Cup Final day 1920, my father Ted Draper and his long-time friend Ted Knapton made the slow ascent up the damp terraced steps – being jostled by other fans, some drunk already – at the rear of the great slug of terracing on the West side of Stamford Bridge. The air was expectant ahead of the Aston Villa vs. Huddersfield Town tie. It would be the only professional football match that my grandfather would ever attend. He had remembered, as a ten-year-old boy living in Somerset, how he had been astounded when told by others that a mighty crowd of 67,000 had attended a game at Stamford Bridge in Chelsea’s first-ever season in 1905/06. It confused him. How did a new club such as Chelsea suddenly have 67,000 supporters? And for a Second Division game too. It was an unheard of figure at the time and was the talk of the schoolyard for many a day. It had captured the imagination, wildly, of my dear grandfather. The visitors on that day in April 1906 were Manchester United and it was a promotion-decider of sorts. My grandfather was convinced that the vast number of spectators had been Chelsea fans, since Manchester was such a long way north, but how was it possible for so many to be lured to the new stadium? Chelsea had mainly played to crowds in the mid-teens throughout that inaugural campaign after that first-ever game at Stockport County. It was one of the biggest league crowds that England had ever seen, although FA Cup Final attendances at Crystal Palace sometimes reached six-figures. Apart from being a fan of the sport, my grandfather soon realised how magnificent it would be to part of such a spectacle and for many years he had daydreamed about being in a similar sized crowd.
In April 1920, he had his wish.”
We sometimes moan, as Chelsea fans, that we always seem to end up playing the same old teams in European competitions, and this often seems to occur in domestic cups too. This annoyance came to light when, for the second successive year, we were drawn at home to Nottingham Forest in the third round of the F. A. Cup. And, taking the biscuit this, the game would be played exactly one year later.
2018/19 : FA Cup Round Three – Chelsea vs. Nottingham Forest, 5 January 2019
2019/20 : FA Cup Round Three – Chelsea vs. Nottingham Forest, 5 January 2020.
Talk about Groundhog Day.
Additionally, we played the Tricky Trees at home in the League Cup in 2017/18 too.
We were in the boozer at just after 11am. Inside “The Famous Three Kings” at West Kensington, all was quiet. The pub – a first visit for us this season – has had a recent re-fit, and it’s to our approval. There was a familiar clink of glasses as Parky, PD and I sat on the high bench seats and waited for others to arrive.
“Cheers.”
Dave from Wellingborough – one of the lads that I used to sit with on The Benches in 1984 and 1985 – soon arrived and it was a pleasure to see him again. Ironically, we bumped into each other for the first time in years at the F.A. Cup away game at Norwich almost two years’ ago. There was positive talk of our form so far this season, and there was talk of the special commemorative kit that Chelsea are using on this – hopefully long – F. A. Cup run this season. It is an almost exact replica of the blue, blue, yellow of the 1970 replay, and we all agreed that it looks the Mutt’s Nuts.
For those who don’t know (and I know many do, so please bear with me), the reason for the yellow trim is because both Chelsea and Leeds United played in white socks. In the first game at Wembley, Leeds were forced to wear the odd choice of Lancastrian red socks as we kept to the white. In the replay it was our turn to change; in came the yellow. To be honest, it could have been easy for us just to don some yellow socks, so fair play to the club for opting for matching yellow trim on the shirt and socks too. The kit re-surfaced for the 1972 League Cup Final too – minus the two blue rings on the socks – but has not been seen since.
Writing in these reports in the Spring of last season, I commented :
“Chit chat about kits came to the fore in recent days. There was a leaked image – as yet unconfirmed – of a truly horrific kit for Chelsea next season. I am sure everyone has seen it. It’s garbage. But it got a few of us thinking. Going into the fiftieth anniversary of the iconic 1970 FA Cup win at Old Trafford, it would be nice to honour that occasion with a one-season only kit of royal blue with yellow trim, including yellow socks.”
Looking back, I liked the fact that our kit in 1996/97 came with a little yellow trim for the first time ever. And we know how that season ended-up; our first silverware for twenty-six years, our first FA Cup since 1970.
We found ourselves talking about European trips. Dave mentioned an away game in Copenhagen in 1998. After the game, at the airport, he was feeling a little worse for wear, and was choosing some items for breakfast at the airport departure lounge. The cashier tallied up his purchases and he found himself a few “krone” short and so shouted over to a mate to see if he had any spare.
Dave heard a voice behind him.
“How much do you want mate? I’ll sort you out.”
Dave looked around and it was none other than Peter Osgood.
Just beautiful.
It seemed that 1970 was going to dominate the day. As if anyone needs reminding, my love of Chelsea Football Club began in April or May 1970, and I am wondering how many more bloody anniversaries will make an appearance in this edition.
Here’s one more.
In May 2000, we beat Aston Villa 1-0 to win the last-ever F. A. Cup Final at the old Wembley Stadium, and we will soon celebrate the anniversary of that triumph. Oh, and guess what? We played Forest at home in the Cup that season too.
Andy and Kim – the Kent lot – arrived unannounced, and the laughter was upped a few notches. They are off to Newcastle in a fortnight, like us, but were looking for tickets. I was glad to be able to assist with the search.
We caught the 28 bus down the North End Road and joined up with Alan and Gary in a very quiet “Simmons”.
Glenn, back in Frome, texted me :
“Chelsea – 9 changes, Forest – 10 changes.”
I replied :
“Chuckle Brothers – 1 change.”
There was just time for a last bottle of “Peroni” and we were off to the game. It was a mild day. We walked ahead of a few Forest fans, who were mulling over the inevitability of the changes announced by the Forest manager. Sadly, it is all about the Premier League these days, and promotion to it. But they seemed to have a “whatever will be will be” attitude. We hoped that our “B Team” would be better than Forest’s.
I bought three copies of the commemorative programme for friends, and caught the lift – like in 2010 – with PD, who struggles with stairs these days.
With not long to go to kick-off we were in. Alan and Gary were down in The Shed Upper for a change and I soon spotted them in row six. So, just PD and little old me in The Sleepy Hollow. There was a mix of usual season ticket holders and new faces which was good to see. I noted a smattering of children nearby which is a very rare sight in The Sleepy Hollow.
It usually resembles a SAGA day trip.
1920 returned to my thoughts.
He was inside Stamford Bridge now, and the enormity of it all hit home. The closeness of everything. The colours of the rosettes. The clamour for attention of the programme sellers, official and otherwise. The sellers of iced lemonade, of ginger beer, of cigarette salesmen. The shouts of the crowd. The Birmingham accents. The Yorkshire dialect. The smoke. The Londoners and the spivs, the touts, the brashness of the city. The musty aroma of overcoats. Caps, bonnets and hats. The swell of the crowd. The bands marching before the game. The huge advertisements adorning every spare inch of space, on hoardings at the back of the huge curve of the terrace, and on the backs of the houses on the Fulham Road. The appearance of the teams. The surge of those on the terrace as a chance goes close. The unstable nature of the terrace beneath the feet, of wooden risers and of mud and cinders. The clouds of dust. Pockets of cigarette smoke drifting over the spectators. The trees in Brompton Cemetery. The smoke rising from chimneys. The wounded Chelsea pensioners – that vivid splash of red – watching from the side of the pitch in antiquated wheelchairs, some without limbs, some without sight. My grandfather, wistful, lost for a moment, a flashback to Amiens or Ypres or Valenciennes.
“There but for the grace of God, go I.”
Forest had 3,000, the same as last season.
The teams entered the pitch – yellow flames, how in keeping – with Chelsea wearing blue trackie tops over the shirts. But the yellow trim looked magnificent. Off came the tops, and we all fell in love with the iconic 1970 Chelsea kit all over again.
It was, quite simply, stunning.
It was a vision in blue and yellow.
Everything was beautiful. The old style crest, the very subtle sponsorship branding in blue, the yellow stripe on the shorts, the shade of yellow, the two blue stripes on the socks, even the font of the numbers. Oh, and the lack of players’ names? Superb.
Not sure of the little yellow tab at the rear of the colour, though.
The team lined-up as below.
Caballero
James – Tomori – Christensen – Emerson
Jorginho – Barkley – Kovacic
Pedro – Batshuayi – Hudson-Odoi
Chelsea in blue and yellow, Forest in red and white.
They were soon singing “Champions of Europe, we won it two times.”
At 2.01pm, the game kicked-off.
For a change, we were attacking the North Stand in the first period. How ‘seventies.
“Come on Chelsea.”
In the first few minutes, Callum and Reece were dribbling down the right wing and I was dribbling all over my top as I looked on with awe at the amazing kit on show. I wasn’t paying attention, but PD was purring as Reece sent over a tantalising cross.
Before we knew it, Callum was played in by Pedro after a lovely interchange of play and found himself in the inside right channel, though with noticeably more space than in recent league games. He cut inside, picked his spot and rifled low past the Forest ‘keeper. After only six minutes, we were on our way to Wembley.
GET IN.
Very soon, a text from The Shed appeared on my dog and bone.
“THTCAUN.”
I replied.
“COMLD.”
We were all over Forest, and two more excellent crosses from the increasingly trustworthy boot of James caused panic in the Forest six-yard box. Alas, despite the lead, the atmosphere was unsurprisingly wank, and – like last season – the away fans were asking us if Stamford Bridge was a building in which books could be temporarily loaned out and then returned free-of-charge.
We had no reply really.
At least nobody retorted with “you’re just a shit Derby County.”
Ah, Derby. Because of last season, there was a largely indecipherable ditty about Our Frank and his former charges throughout the first half, but it is not worth any more comment.
Michael Dawson was booed by some in the home support, all very tedious.
Against the run of play, Forest were awarded a penalty when Fikayo Tomori was adjudged to have fouled a Forest striker. The tedious VAR was called into action and, lo and behold, no penalty but an offside instead.
“FUCK VAR” shouted Forest and I wholeheartedly agreed.
A shot from Tomori, a shot from Pedro, a shot from Barkley, a shot from Michy Batshuayi. Our chances were piling up. Behind, Jorginho the prompter was having a fine game. On around the half-hour mark, a lovely move set up a shot for Our Callum which was only half-saved by the ‘keeper and Ross Barkley was on hand to tap in with almost an involuntary action. Ross had already wasted a few early moments of possession, irritating some, so perhaps if he had time to think about his finish he might not have fared quite so well. We immediately stood up and applauded and, as I snapped away, there was no thought of a VAR involvement. It looked a perfectly sound goal to us in The Sleepy Hollow. Ross celebrated with his team mates below.
VAR?
No offside, well on. Goal.
“Surely it’s safe now, PD. Mind you, we were 2-0 up against Bradford City in 2015.”
Another cross from Reece, but a glancing header from Michy was sent just wide of the post. We had totally dominated the first-half, and it had been a breeze.
At the break, as I had predicted, we were treated to the appearance of five of the 1970 twelve.
Ron Harris.
Marvin Hinton.
Tommy Baldwin.
John Dempsey.
John Hollins.
Of course, sadly Peter Osgood, Peter Houseman and Ian Hutchinson are no longer with us, and Peter Bonetti is very poorly. PD made the point that it was a shame that there was no 1970 goalkeeping kit on show. Bearing in mind that The Cat is struggling with his health it would be a lovely gesture if this can be remedied. A “Bonetti kit” – green cotton gloves, too – with proceeds going to his medical requirements. It would sell I am sure. Over to you, Chelsea.
Of the remaining players, Eddie McCreadie and Charlie Cooke are in the US, and David Webb – the maverick – never seems to be invited to these sort of occasions, a real shame.
The second-half began. There was not quite the same drive and intensity as the first-half and I got the distinct impression that Forest were looking at this as some sort of training exercise. We created a few chances, though, with a header from Barkley after a fine dribble and cross from Hudson-Odoi grazing the post below Alan and Gary in The Shed.
From a Forest free-kick down below us, Ryan Yates rose in the six yard box to head home but, as he taunted us as he celebrated, the flag was raised for offside, which VAR upheld.
The crowd went mild.
Still the atmosphere was poor. Only a rousing “Stand Up If You Hate Tottenham” chant on the hour united the whole stadium. But that’s another chant that is over-worked these days.
Oh how the Forest fans loved it when Mason Mount – Derby County last season – replaced Kovacic on seventy minutes. He was roundly booed every time he received the ball. There was also an appearance for Tariq Lampty replacing Pedro, who might have been playing his last game for us if his clapping of all four stands was anything to go by. Lampteys number “48” took up the entire back of his shirt.
The game dwindled a little, but it was still Chelsea who dominated throughout. Late efforts from Batshuayi, Emerson and Hudson-Odoi did not increase the score. But this was as easy a win as I can remember.
Groundhog Day again, even the scores were the same.
2018/19 : FA Cup Round Three – 5 January 2019.
Chelsea 2 Nottingham Forest 0.
2019/20 : FA Cup Round Three – 5 January 2020.
Chelsea 2 Nottingham Forest 0.
Frank Lampard soon raced on to the pitch to thank us, but by then my mind was elsewhere, and I was pondering what sandwich to buy on the walk back to the car, and which away venues were up for grabs in the next round.
And I wondered what next as this homage to 1970 continues on in to the next stage; sideburns for the players, perhaps?
On the drive home, or at home, I found out that this was our twenty-second successive advancement into the Fourth Round. Now that is some achievement (the less said about what happened in 1998, when we were F. A. Cup holders, the better.)
Wembley – here we come?
It would be nice. We certainly like our fiftieth anniversaries and our centenaries at Chelsea.
Next up, we have a run of the mill league encounter at home to Burnley next Saturday. Before that game, I might even pop into the Megastore to purchase a pair of blue and yellow shorts for an Argentinian summer.
I have some missionary work to do in Buenos Aires.
At the end of the first-half of this League Cup Final at Wembley, I tapped out a simple note on my ‘phone – I often record a few things for these match reports in such a fashion – which summed up my feelings at the time.
The one word that I used was “humdrum.”
This is not to say that the game was boring me rigid. Far from it. We had managed to contain the swift passing and incisive finishing which is such a trademark of this modern day Manchester City, and all of the Chelsea players were playing at a level far greater than I, and I suspect many others, had anticipated. After the awful start to the league game up in Manchester just a fortnight previous, there must have been many that would have been overjoyed at the thought of reaching the half-time mark without a goal conceded. No goals after forty-five is much better than four after twenty-five. We were level at the break and, really, there had been no shocks and scares, and no defensive lapses, no calamitous back passes, no switching off, no rash tackles, no dramas. We were in with a shout, and not a shout of anguish that was too often heard from the Chelsea ranks at The Etihad. There had been a compactness to our shape which we have not often seen this season, and although we had created little ourselves, we had limited Pep Guardiola’s team to just one lazy strike by the always dangerous Sergio Aguero. We had contained the City team, and that was fine with me.
I mention this moment, and the choice of that word, because it is exactly the same word that the respected chief football writer of “The Times” Henry Winter used at the very start of his subsequent match report.
Yet “humdrum” belies the emotion and drama that went into this game.
We had travelled up from the west of England at the break of dawn with an uneasy feeling in our stomachs. We acknowledged that the match under the arch at Wembley had the potential to illustrate the difference in the two teams; City blossoming under Guardiola’s third season at the helm, Chelsea struggling to acclimatise to Maurizio Sarri’s new regime.
The four of us – PD, Parky, PDs’s son Scott and little old me – did not dwell too much on the Final. We had other things to talk about. The upcoming trip to Kiev – only two and a half weeks to wait for that one unlike the three month wait for Budapest – dominated our thoughts. It should be a cracker. We had set off early and at just before 10am, I had parked-up in the car park beneath the Premier Inn at Putney Bridge, and then joined the others over the road at one of our favourites, “The Eight Bells.”
The first of many pre-match pints were downed. We chatted to a couple of other Chelsea fans. The day had begun well.
I was trying to fathom out if I was truly sure that we would lose against City, or was there a Munich-style win, against all odds and other clichés, lurking somewhere in the shadows? I honestly wasn’t sure. I had told the boys in a moment of unbridled positivism that Chelsea tended not to lose finals. And I wanted to believe that on this day too. Since 1994, there had been final wins against Middlesbrough, Middlesbrough, Stuttgart, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United, Everton, Portsmouth, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Benfica, Tottenham and Manchester United. There had only been losses against Manchester United, Arsenal, Tottenham, Manchester United and Arsenal.
It has been, of course, a brilliant run.
Until 1994, the previous final of any note or significance was the 1971 win over Real Madrid.
Yet in this story of Chelsea and Manchester City at Wembley, we have to mention 1986 don’t we?
Too bloody right we do.
Yes, we played City in the Community Shield in August – and humdrum was surely the key word on that day out – and we lost to them in the FA Cup semi-final of 2013, but the Full Members Cup Final almost thirty-three years ago meant so much at the time. It was the first time that I had ever seen Chelsea play at Wembley. It was the day we took fifty-thousand to the national stadium. It took place on the Sunday of the same weekend where we had played at Southampton on the Saturday. It was the day David Speedie scored a hat-trick. And it was the day we almost buggered it up, leading 5-1 with five minutes to go, only for City to score three more times. It was the day we won 5-4 at Wembley. It was as mad as a bucket of frogs.
The Full Members Cup was an odd creation, and came in the wake of the UEFA ban on English clubs after Heysel in 1985/86.
A little history. Try to keep awake.
In 1983/84 the bottom two divisions were given a competition all of their own. It was called the Associate Members Cup, and would become the Freight Rover Trophy, the Sherpa Van Trophy, the Leyland DAF Trophy, the Autoglass Trophy, the Auto Windscreen’s Shield, the LDV Vans Trophy and, when our car industry ceased to exist, it became the Johnstone’s Paints Trophy. It is now the EFL trophy.
In 1985, it was decided that the clubs in the top two divisions were to have their own cup too. Ken Bates was a leading light in its foundation. This competition only lasted until 1992 and was latterly known as the Simod Cup and the Zenith Data Systems Trophy.
In that inaugural 1985/86 season, Chelsea played against Portsmouth, West Brom, Charlton and Oxford United at games with very few spectators. I didn’t attend any. I was not alone.
But we had to go to the final, despite the rather laughable nature of the competition itself. It is worth noting that the teams that missed out on UEFA competitions after Heysel took part in their own competition, the Screensport Super Cup, with games being shown on that cable station. It lasted just one year. I remember watching an Everton vs. Tottenham game one night and counting twelve Spurs fans at Goodison. The ‘eighties were a strange time.
I was living in Stoke in 1986, and I caught a 1am train in the early hours of the Sunday morning to Euston. While we were winning at The Dell, City were embroiled in a Mancunian derby at Old Trafford. As I boarded the train, I realised that their main lads were packing the train to the rafters. There were bodies everywhere. After battling United on and off the pitch, their testosterone levels must have been sky-high. I saw one Chelsea fan getting battered so I quickly took off my badges. I remember talking to a long-haired City fan – very inebriated – but although he soon sussed I was Chelsea he left me alone for which I am eternally grateful. To be honest, I should have been punched for wearing a red jacket. I eventually caught some sleep and arrived at Euston at about 5.30am. Then a two hour wait until the tube started. God knows what I did. The Mancs must have swarmed the place. I got to Wembley as early as 10.30am, and bumped into Alan outside, who had been to Southampton the previous day.
Inside the stadium, I bumped into two lads from college in Stoke that I knew. Once on the terrace, I met another lad – Swan – from my home area. I was disappointed that City did not bring more.We had 50,000. They had 17,000. Our end was absolutely rammed, the section that I was in especially. Packed in like sardines.
A Chelsea banner said “Never Drop Nevin.”
Another said “We Are Here.”
At the start, a few Chelsea got into the City end but were escorted out. Steve Kinsey soon put City ahead, only for us to retaliate in fine fashion. Three goals from David Speedie and two from Colin Lee – in place of the injured Kerry Dixon – put us 5-1 up. My diary tells me Speedo could have scored six and Wee Pat was at his best. We applauded – in jest, no doubt – City’s second and third goals, but not their fourth. There were two goals for Mark Lillis and an inevitable Doug Rougvie own goal. And we applauded City as they did a lap of honour at the end. How quaint.
Our celebrations were ridiculous though. They hardly matched the importance of the trophy. But we loved it.
However, I couldn’t help but think “bloody hell, fifty thousand for this tin pot cup, what will it be like if we ever won anything important?”
It had been a super day out.
In 2019, our travels took us up to Fulham Broadway where we were joined by Dan and Johnny, friends of Scott, from Frome. We enjoyed a few more beers at “The Oyster Rooms” above the tube station, and we sat opposite the balcony of the Fulham Town Hall where Ossie and Co restored our pride in 1970 and 1971. I was intrigued to hear that Dan had played for my local village team, Mells and Vobster United in its final season of 2017/18, the same team that my grandfather played for in the ‘twenties, and for whom I played a few games – in the reserves – in the early ‘eighties. From there, we joined the lads at The Fountain’s Abbey on Praed Street at Paddington, although we paid scant regard to the United vs. Liverpool match that was being played out on TV. Two Californians, Andy and Brett, popped in to see us, and it was a pleasure to chat to them. By now, the time was moving on and so Parky, PD, Scott, Dan, Johnny and I hailed a cab to take us to Wembley. We arrived a few minutes late.
Shocker, eh?
The team had been announced at some stage and our reactions were muted.
No striker?
Does that mean a more cat-and-mouse approach? OK.
Arrizabalaga
Azpilicueta – Rudiger – Luiz – Emerson
Jorginho
Kante – Barkley
Willian – Hazard – Pedro
Of course we had missed all of the pre-match hoopla. High up in the East Terrace, I soon realised that I had left my glasses back in the car.
Bollocks.
I took it all in. A full house. Empty seats were few and far between. Blue skies above. We stood the entire match, as did everyone.
The first-half passed without too much of a scare. With each passing minute, our spirits were raised. Without stating the obvious, I was very impressed with N’Golo Kante, who ran and ran and ran. Limiting City to one real chance emphasised how well we had played. Our attacks were rare, but with Eden Hazard we always have a chance.
The second-half began. Ageuro scored from close in but I immediately saw the linesman’s raised flag over to the right. Phew. A David Luiz free-kick down below us after a foul on Ross Barkley – who I favoured over Mateo Kovacic – flew over the bar. But the Chelsea crowd certainly sensed that we were gaining an upper hand, and the noise boomed around Wembley. City’s legions, on the other hand, were deadly quiet, or so it seemed. Little pockets of noise in our end soon joined up and often the entire end was rocking. I felt so proud. This was what supporting a team should always be like. Maybe it was a simple realisation that, as huge underdogs going into the match, the players just needed us more. We certainly did ourselves proud. At last the sad memory of the 2008 League Cup Final was put to history when our support simply did not turn up against Tottenham. That afternoon – with us in the same end – was probably a low water mark for me in forty-five years of attending Chelsea games. We were shocking, and – it hurts me to say it – Tottenham had never been louder.
Ugh.
With just over an hour gone, Emerson fed Hazard who attacked the space down the Chelsea left. He waltzed past Vincent Kompany and pulled the ball back to Kante, whose first time shot flew over the bar. A shot from Barkley. A City free-kick but a poor effort from a subdued De Bruyne. Then Pedro chose to pass when a shot on goal would surely have been more beneficial.
Still the songs rumbled around Wembley.
“CAREFREE…”
Callum Hudson-Odoi replaced Pedro.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek replaced Barkley.
In the last kick of the ninety-minutes, a well struck effort from Willian, from a free-kick out on the left, forced Emerson to flex back and tip over. A winner then would have sent us in to bloody orbit. We had played with guts and grit, and had limited City to a ridiculously small amount of chances.
Advantage us? It felt like it.
I got my timings all wrong, and chose the wrong moment to turn my bike around, sentenced to a long spell in the gents – others had timed it all wrong too – as extra-time started without me. When I reappeared, I realised that Gonzalo Higuain had replaced Willian. The time soon passed with little incident, although our noise levels were still the better of the two sets of supporters. I only really heard City sing en masse in the period of extra-time. Flags were waved in their end. Free bar scarves, for those in our lower sections, were twirled in response. The whole team were still defending resolutely, though our attacking bursts had not continued, despite some nice twists and turns from our Callum and a few strong runs from our Ruben. There was a ridiculous scramble at the other end as the minutes ticked by. A fine full length save from Kepa kept out that man Aguero.
And then it went mad.
Kepa went down. Willy Caballero was spotted on the touchline. We put two and two together. Word among ourselves was that Caballero, a former City player, and a bit of a hero in the penalty-saving game, would come on for the injured Kepa. But, wait a minute. Kepa was having none of it. To be honest, we were one hundred and fifty yards away, and not only was I high up at Wembley, my glasses were at Putney Bridge. But we got the message alright.
Kepa 1 Sarri 0.
What a mess.
The final whistle soon blew.
To our relief, penalties were to be taken at our end.
Advantage Chelsea? We thought so.
I took a few photos more. Two photos told a story, perhaps.
City looked united. They were in a tight group, embracing each other, no doubt being given calming words from the manager.
Chelsea looked the opposite. Some were chatting, some were alone. In the photo that I took, Sarri was absent, although I did not realise it at the time.
Penalty One.
Jorginho. A repeat of his two previous penalties for us. A hop, a slow push to the ‘keeper’s left, the same as the other two. An easy save. Fuck.
Penalty Two.
Gundogan. Low and in.
Penalty Three.
Azpilicueta. An odd run up but a strong, high penalty.
Penalty Four.
Aguero. Damn, Kepa almost reached it.
Penalty Five.
Emerson. No nerves. In.
Penalty Six.
Sane. A fantastic save from Kepa.
COME ON! PD and I yelled and hugged, hugged and yelled, and yelled and hugged some more.
Penalty Seven.
Luiz. A long run up, that side foot, the base of the post.
BOLLOCKS.
Penalty Eight.
Silva. Right down the middle, right down Regent street, bollocks again.
Penalty Nine.
Hazard. An impudent chip. In.
Penalty Ten.
Sterling. On the money. In.
BOLLOCKS.
We soon left the stadium. We were all proud of the boys, and of ourselves, but it was not to be. There were some positives. We had played much better than I had expected. The manager had been pragmatic and had changed his philosophy. Jorginho had been fine, no complaints. To be honest, we had deserved to win.
One thing pleased me, and I know this is going to sound strange. I was pleased that I was hurting. After forty-five years of going to football, and almost fifty years of being a Chelsea fan – damn, am I really that old? – I was very upset and disappointed to lose what some fools might call a Mickey Mouse Trophy. I took some real solace in that.
We marched out into the night. I took umbrage at a fan who was lambasting Sarri, Jorginho and Luiz (“fuck off to Napoli”) and I stood up to him.
“Because of their penalty misses? But Luiz scored in Munich. Don’t be a twat.”
He soon disappeared.
Back to Marylebone, a cab to Fulham, some more “Peroni” at “The Goose” and the night loosened-up a little. We made plans for the next few games amid the usual gallows humour, a night out in Liverpool for the Everton game, talk of Kiev, plans for Fulham, then next door for a late night pizza and one last “Nastro Azzuro” then one last cab back to the hotel at the southern tip of Fulham. Despite the result, the day had been magnificent.
Not many Chelsea were saying too many positive things about this League Cup semi-final against Tottenham at Wembley. I was one of them. Just before I left work at 3pm, one of my work colleagues reminded me that I had uttered words of concern and apprehension a few hours earlier. It had been a reasonable day at work, but had become much busier with various problems snowballing in the two hours before I was set to join PD and Parky on a midweek flit to London once more. As I closed my computer down and packed up my goods and chattels, I uttered something to the effect – half-jokingly – that I’d rather stay on a few hours and get to the bottom of a few of these work issues than head up to The Smoke where Tottenham would be a very tough nut to crack.
But I left work, and grabbed a couple of items from the conveniently-located “Greggs” which sits just across a roundabout on the A350, next to “The Milk Churn” pub and a drive-thru “Starbucks” – all mod cons – and we made excellent time as PD drove to London. This was always going to be a long old evening. To that effect, I decided to take the Wednesday off work. So, as PD climbed onto the M4 at Chippenham, it felt good knowing that I would not be starved of sleep at work on the Wednesday where those problems would have required my full attention. I was even able to catch an hour of intermittent sleep. Such decadence. I awoke as PD was flying over the elevated section of the M4 just before Brentford’s new stadium came in to view.
As I came around, oddly spotting the Wembley Arch highlighted in a mid-blue, looking more Chelsea than Tottenham, “The King Of Wishful Thinking” by Go West was on Radio Two. It seemed almost appropriate, despite us heading east and then north. The game required a lot of wishful thoughts. We soon parked up at Barons Court and were soon enjoying the comfort of “The Blackbird” pub at Earl’s Court.
For an hour, we were the kings of wishful drinking.
It had taken PD a couple of minutes’ shy of two hours to cover the journey from the west of England to the west of London, possibly a personal best for these midweek trips. We were not sure where the other of the five thousand Chelsea fans would be drinking before the game. No doubt Marylebone would be the epicentre. In the pub, we ran through plans for the next run of games, but noticeably chose to ignore the evening’s game. In a nutshell, we were still hurting after the 1-3 defeat at Wembley in late November and, if anything, they have become stronger and we have become weaker.
I am sure that I was not alone in contemplating a possible heavy defeat. Involving goals, and lots of them, but let’s not be rude and mention actual numbers.
However, to be honest, an absolute shellacking has been very rare for our club for many years. In another conversation with a work colleague, I had reminded myself, from memory, that our last heavy defeat to any team in the league football was a 1-5 reverse at Anfield in the autumn of 1996. As a comparison, we have put six past Tottenham in 1997, six against Manchester City in 2007, six past Arsenal in 2014, six past Everton in 2014, not to mention sevens against a few smaller clubs and even eight on two occasions.
We have enjoyed the upper hand, in general, over many since that game at Anfield twenty-three years ago.
There were, however, these two games against the evening’s opponents :
2001/02 League Cup : Tottenham Hotspur 5 Chelsea 1
2014/15 League : Tottenham Hotspur 5 Chelsea 3
So, despite us lording it over our rivals from North London over the past three decades, they have represented two of our biggest losses within the UK in the past two decades. By the way, if I am wrong (I have not forgotten our 3-5 loss to Manchester United in 1999 – shudder), I am sure another like-minded pedant will correct me.
So, I think we were all fearful of another cricket score.
In retrospect, I needed those two pints of “Nastro Azzurro.”
At 6.30pm we caught the tube to Edgware Road, then walked to Marylebone. There were no residual drinkers at the bar outside the station. We must have been some of the last to travel to Wembley. We caught the 7.15pm train to Birmingham New Street, which would make an additional stop at Wembley Stadium.
Perfect.
We were soon at Wembley Stadium station. Again, there were very few Chelsea around. There were a few isolated Yelps from the locals.
I tut-tutted.
We walked past a few souvenir stalls. To get around counterfeit rules, there were half-and-half scarves quoting “TOTTENHA9” which I thought was quite clever (for those not au fait with the UK postal service, Wembley Stadium is in Harrow, with its HA9 postcode).
We joined the line at the away turnstiles where at last there were more Chelsea fans. My usual camera was too much of a risk again, so the phone had to do.
In the rush to get to the stadium – in the end, we were inside at 7.45pm, well ahead of the 8pm start – I had only glimpsed at the team on my ‘phone. I had focused on the lack of Olivier Giroud or Alvaro Morata in the line-up, but elsewhere Andreas Christensen was in for David Luiz, and our Callum had retained his place.
PD and Parky were down in the corner, along with Alan and Gary. I popped down to see them. I was further along, behind the goal. My mate Andy offered to swap so I could be with them. But this would be a different viewpoint – I would be in that part of the stadium for the first time – so I explained how I’d be able to take a different set of photographs during the night (though, if I am honest, I knew that the subsequent quality would not be great).
“It’s not all about the photographs, though, Andy.”
“I think it is, Chris.”
I laughed, trying not to agree with him.
I walked over to gate 113 and to my seat in row 12. There were no spectators at all in the top tier; capacity had been capped at 51,000, still a healthy figure.
The teams came on.
TOTTENHA9 vs. CHELSW6.
Unlike the game in November, we were in all blue. It looked right and it felt right too.
Bizarrely, oddly, surprisingly, we began well. To my pleasure this was met with a fantastic salvo of many different Chelsea songs, as if we were forced to prove a point to the watching world that we are not all about the Y Word. Even when “that” song was aired, it ended with a whimper of “sssssshhh” rather than anything more sinister.
Why?
Because it just was not worth it.
It was a great selection of songs and chants. I knew that the other lot would not be able to compete with our selection.
Son Heing-Min and Christensen fell against each other, but no penalty. Despite our early domination, Spurs had the best of the chances in the first quarter of an hour when there was a timid overhead kick from Harry Kane which Kepa easily claimed. At the other end, Barkley, Hudson-Odoi and Hazard tested the Tottenham ‘keeper Paulo Gazzaniga which sounded like something that Paul Gascoigne might have called himself at one stage in his odd life.
Then, with Chelsea honestly dominating and looking at ease, having quietened the home support, a long ball for Kane to attack was played out of the Spurs defence.
This always looked like a problematic moment.
This is what happened in my mind.
That bloody ball is going to drop right in the correct place, right in no-man’s land, we are in trouble.
I did not spot the linesman’s flag, my main focus was on the race to the ball between Kane and Kepa.
Kepa’s approach was full of hesitation. I feared the worst.
There seemed to be contact.
I expected a penalty.
But there was no immediate decision. I presumed that there had been no touch.
Then it dawned on me that the dreaded VAR would be called in to decide on the penalty.
It became muddied in the away end with fans talking about an offside flag.
The TV screen mentioned “VAR – penalty being checked.” Bollocks.
The wait.
The point to the spot by referee Oliver and the roar from the home fans.
The further wait for the penalty to be taken.
The goal, the roar, the run and jump from Kane.
The bemusement – at best – and anger – at worst – that the fans in the stadium had not seen the evidence that perhaps other had seen.
I hate modern football.
I made a point of looking over to the two hundred or so Tottenham supporters closest to the Chelsea crowd to my left. After only around ten seconds of the goal being scored, there was no ribald behaviour, no shouting, no pointing, no screaming, no gesturing, no passion. This was Tottenham vs. Chelsea and their lot didn’t seem to be bothered.
Bloody hell, I hated modern football further.
However, the dynamic of the game had changed irrevocably and the first goal seemed to inspire the home team and home fans alike. Their two dirges rang around the stadium.
“Oh When The Spurs.”
“Come On You Spurs.”
Y.
As in Yawn.
We lost our verve a little. Willian was enduring a poor game, seemingly unwilling to even try to get past his man. Eden Hazard was dropping ridiculously deep. Yet again, there was no threat in the box. Crosses were dolloped towards Kante. Quite ludicrous. Thankfully it was still Chelsea who were seeing more of the ball. The home team were content to sit deeper than usual. Towards the end of the half, a low Alonso cross from the left was nudged against the base of the hear post by N’Golo Kante.
We were amazed that there were just two minutes of added time; the VAR nonsense alone seemed to take more than that. Hudson-Odoi, enjoying a surprising amount of space on the right, played the ball in and it took a deflection up from Danny Rose and was deflected up and on to the bar, with Gazza back peddling, fake tits and all.
At half-time, I had a wander and the mood in the wide Wembley concourse was positive.
“We’re doing OK.”
I then spotted a “Krispy Kreme” stand.
At football.
For fuck sake.
There were police vans lined up outside Wembley and now we had Krispy Kreme stands inside it. Modern football, eh? From the threat of sporadic hooliganism to benign consumerism; what a mixture of oddities combine to make up the modern – or post-modern, I can never be sure – football experience.
Back in my seat, the chap next to me commented that we had “out shot” them by nine efforts to two. This mirrored my thoughts on the game thus far. I was enjoying it, and this surprised me. Although it had not been a riot of noise as befitting a London derby – far from it – this game was keeping me wholly involved.
It was hugely better than the November match.
This feeling of involvement would continue as the second-half began.
Spurs’ simply played very little football in our half throughout the second period. And the Chelsea fans, though not wildly loud throughout, kept backing the players in royal blue. As the game developed, I was heading every clearance and making every tackle. There was a rare chance for Tottenham, but a shot from Kane resulted in a strong-fisted save from Kepa. But for all our share of the ball, there were far too many lazy crosses, in great positions, to the far post where there were only Tottenham defenders. It seemed that a few of our players were suffering from old habits; on reaching the goal-line, how often had they been told to clip a ball to the far post throughout their footballing career? It is a standard move. But it tended to dominate our play at times. They must have strong muscle memory because this ball was often repeated, which caused much frustration in our ranks.
But a few of our players grew in the second-half, with Hazard becoming our main hope. He dominated the ball at times. I was fascinated with how he goaded players into a mistimed tackle before moving the ball on. But it was always frustrating to see such dominance hardly muster up many golden chances. We did well to work the ball into spaces, if only we had a cutting edge.
Hazard hit one straight at Gazzaniga, Kante caused the same player to stretch out and keep the shot out.
Just before the hour, Barkley – who had started strong but was drifting – flicked on a corner towards the far post. We all switched our gaze like those courtside spectators at a tennis match and spotted Andreas Christensen, unmarked, but his clumsy effort, confusing his left leg with his right leg went begging.
Pedro replaced Willian, but despite often overloading with wing play down our right, the final killer ball would never be played the rest of the game. We did have tons of space in front of the “Chelsea Corner” and it was tough to see it not coming to any use.
On sixty-five minutes, with Chelsea totally on top and pushing them back and back, Kane went down – classic gamesmanship from their captain – and play was halted. It took the wind from our sails momentarily. The home found responded with a rousing Billy Ray Cyrus, the twats. But we were not perturbed. We came back again. The fans were well in this game. We knew that our players were putting a great show of endeavour and fight.
Mateo Kovacic replaced Barkley.
We continued to run the show, but there was one rare Tottenham break which looked like danger. It was a one-on-one, I forget the Tottenham player, but a seemingly ugly challenge by Antonio Rudiger went the other way. Free-kick to us. Answers on a postcard.
To our frustration, Hudson-Odoi was replaced Olivier Giroud with ten minutes to go. Another “answers on a postcard” moment.
Why? What? Who? When?
It made no bloody sense.
The clock ticked and I was still sure we might get a last-ditch equaliser. We still sang towards the end. Five thousand in a fifty-one thousand crowd seemed right; if only we could be allowed such a share in all games. I was surprised that Tottenham were so happy to defend deep. Were they sure that a 1-0 margin would honestly be enough?
Alas, the final whistle blew. We had – I think – deserved a draw. It was a loss, but it felt like a moral victory. On the walk out towards the train station – we would be on the last one out – it was reassuring to hear several groups of Tottenham fans saying that the 1-0 result had flattered them, that Eden Hazard was such a fantastic player and that the tie was far from over.
We made it back to Barons Court at 11.30pm and to Melksham to swap cars at 1.30am.
“Bloody enjoyed that lads. See you Saturday.”
Bizarrely, on the ten mile drive home from the Milk Churn car park, I narrowly avoided running over a badger, a cat, a fox and a rabbit.
If I had seen a cockerel, it might not have fared so well.
CHELSEA/esque 