Chelsea vs. Fulham : 30 August 2025.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was 11.50am.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Napoli, Benfica, Barcelona, Bayern.

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

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

“Our House.”

“Parklife.”

“Liquidator.”

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

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

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

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

Beautiful.

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

Modern football.

Flash, bang, wallop.

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

With Clive and PD alongside me, the game began.

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

Fulham : “is this a library?”

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

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

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

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

Ah, bollocks.

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

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

What foul? We never saw a foul.

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

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

However, PD was unimpressed.

“We are awful.”

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

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

“Neto is quiet, eh?”

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

Oh dear.

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

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

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

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

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

This was all so disjointed.

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

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

We were up 1-0.

Phew.

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

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

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

Penalty.

I whispered to Clive.

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

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

We were now 2-0 up.

Another phew.

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

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

I looked over at the Fulham fans.

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

“Villa Park.”

“Exactly.”

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

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

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

On sixty-eight minutes, Jamie Gittens replaced Estevao.

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

Gittens looked neat in his cameo down below me.

On eighty-one minutes, a double substitution.

Andrey Santos for George, who had been quiet.

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

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

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

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

Sigh.

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

A shot from distance from Reece James.

Another eight minutes of injury time was met with groans.

“Groans from even the Fulham fans I think.”

I just wanted to get on my way home.

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

Definitely man of the match.

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

Good grief.

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

“Yeah, it’s only Fulham.”

Postscript :

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

BA13 vs. BA11

SW6 vs. SW6