“Oh Eddie Mac, When Are You Coming Back?”

Aug 21 • History, Tim Rolls • 22021 Views • No Comments

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Saturday 2^nd July 1977. Close season, and up to that point a very happy one for Chelsea fans. After promotion back to Division One in May, Chelsea’s young team (Ray Wilkins, Steve Finnieston, Garry Stanley and the rest) were looking forward to the new season under inspirational young manager Eddie McCreadie, starting with an away game at West Bromwich Albion on 20^th August. Better still, old rivals Spurs had been relegated.

I was working as a cleaner at the university in Canterbury that summer and while clocking into work that Saturday, noticed the back page of the paper. “McCreadie Quits” or similar words. Appalled, I scanned the page to see that Eddie Mac had indeed left the club after a row with the board. It later transpired that this was due to a dispute over McCreadie wanting a company car like his local rival, Fulham manager Bobby Campbell, as opposed to the club van he was currently allocated. Chairman Brian Mears and his board refused, on the basis that the club was completely skint.

The club was indeed skint, with an often half-empty expensive albatross of a new East Stand, no transfer buys for over two seasons, ‘Cash For Chelsea’ collection buckets at home games and on away specials and endless gloomy press articles speculating whether Chelsea would survive. I don’t think any of us fans seriously ever thought the club would fold, but for a while around 1975-78 it must have been a possibility. At one stage an Accountant from Stoy Hayward said to McCreadie “Why do you need these footballs?”. “Because we’re a bl**dy football club”, an exasperated Eddie Mac replied.

Whatever the rights and wrongs, it was clearly absurd that the board let McCreadie leave, given his club roots, his youth, his obvious abilities tactically and motivationally, his talent at bringing young players through (essential given the lack of money for players) and his enormous popularity with the fans. Arguably it took until 1983, when John Neal brought a wave of youngsters into the club, that the team began to recover.

The shock of McCreadie’s departure for fans cannot be overstated, and Mears, rightly or wrongly, was never forgiven by many fans, myself included, for letting him go. Chelsea well may have struggled under Eddie Mac back in Division One but I am not alone in believing the team would have given it more of a go.

Chelsea were in no position to attract a top manager from outside so were forced make an internal appointment to turn to Ken Shellito, Youth Team coach. Shellito was a loyal one-club man who but for a series of cruel injuries might well have played in the 1966 World Cup, but he did not possess McCreadie’s mercurial talents. He had no money to spend, and used the same pool of largely home-grown players, some of whom were to understandably struggle at the higher level.

One other issue at Chelsea was the ongoing issue of crowd trouble, particularly at away games. Chelsea had been banned from the promotion game at Wolves at the end of the previous season (see http://bit.ly/nLgx6T) but had still taken c7,000 fans.

For the new season the away ban had been rescinded, but many games, including the opening game at West Brom, were made all ticket. The club also introduced a membership system which you needed to buy away match tickets, but also to be able to travel on the special trains. The fact that many of those causing trouble clearly never travelled on the specials anyway, clearly didn’t occur to the club.

I can’t remember how fans were made aware of the arrangements for West Brom trains and match tickets. There were pre-season home Anglo-Scottish Cup games against Orient and Norwich (for which I don’t have the programmes) so maybe they gave details. I do remember that trying to call the club to get information around that time was very difficult, given the thousands trying to do the same thing.

For reasons I can’t remember (and certainly not because we were looking for trouble, far from it), we got tickets in the West Brom home end through a friend of The Curator who was a Hawthorns regular, rather than get them from Chelsea. We also decided to stay the weekend with his mum in Cheltenham and travel up from there.

Handily, Manchester United were playing at Birmingham City that day. Handily, because their fans notoriety was at its mid-70’s peak and the “We’re worse than Man United” chant was often heard at Chelsea games. The West Midlands police understandably didn’t want some sort of ‘Battle Of New Street’ taking place so Chelsea trains (including, I think, a non-special) went straight to Smethwick station in an attempt to keep fans apart. Chelsea sold their match tickets out easily, and the special trains, though as ever many fans made their own way there unsupervised.

So Saturday August 20^th dawned (exactly 35 years ago to the day that I am writing this piece). We got into New Street from Cheltenham about 12.00 to find police everywhere. We quickly got out and got a bus to The Hawthorns, suburban trains not being seen as a sensible idea for us. After a bit of searching we met the guy with the tickets and were taken into the West Brom Supporters Club bar (right next to the ground, still there but closed for many years). Chelsea fans had a pretty bad name and we stayed there for about two hours in near silence, with him ordering the beer (keg Brew XI, not my favourite) and us drinking it, until not long before kick-off. The crowd was only 20,145 so there must have been plenty of space on the terraces, although the Chelsea end, inevitably, was packed.

I remember little about the game, which Chelsea deservedly lost 3-0 after somehow keeping a clean sheet in the first half, indicative of struggles ahead. What I do remember is that two goals were scored by their England midfielder Tony ‘Bomber’ Brown. Given the carnage wreaked by the IRA in that city a few years earlier, I wouldn’t have thought that was a very desirable nickname, but there you go.

We stood at one side of the main terrace and standing next to me was a little, middle-aged guy in a cloth cap, moaning away about West Brom’s inadequacies. His only hero was Brown, the rest were wastrels in his eyes. After each Brown goal this guy, eyes bulging, started hugging me and shouting ‘The Bomber, The Bomber’ in a loud, flat Brummie accent. As I had spent the game mutely watching Chelsea struggle and making no conversation whatsoever, this rather threw me – I still vividly remember him 35 years later. We left just before the end and made our way to the bus stop.

When we got there, there were groups chasing each other up and down the road – I have no idea how Chelsea fans got out of the escort so quickly. Eventually we silently got on a bus and gotarrived back to New Street, hoping to make a quick exit to Cheltenham. We got there to find thousands of chanting flare and scarf wearing United fans (the ‘Les from Bay City Rollers’ look was still big in Manchester) all over the concourse, corralled by lines of policemen – United had won 4-1, ironically Dave Sexton’s first league game as manager, even more ironically replacing the sacked Tommy Doc.

Outside, we could see hundreds of Birmingham City fans being held back from invading the station. We waited for the Cheltenham train to be called, but the priority was to get the red hordes on trains to Manchester so we had to wait a while. I assume quite a lot of Chelsea fans must have had to pass through that station top get home that evening, but we didn’t see any. The United fans were chanting about Chelsea, warming up for the Old Trafford clash a month hence (written about at http://plainsofalmeria.co.uk/2011/09/16/a-trip-to-old-trafford-before-friendship-scarves-were-invented/ ) which didn’t help our mood.

I lived in a house with four hippies that summer, which had its challenges. It’s greatest challenge was when we suddenly saw two of my housemates, who I didn’t know were in Birmingham that weekend, sitting cross-legged on the floor (no easy stereotyping here…) and the bloke mumbled “Hi Tim. Hey, are Chelsea playing here?”. I can’t remember how we avoided getting spotted, but eventually got on our train. Of course there were loads of Man United fans also on board, so even then we couldn’t relax. We did most away games that season but sensibly reverted to the safer special trains and tickets for the away end.

Chelsea finished 16^th that season, four points clear of relegation, after a season of understandable struggle. Shellito managed to keep the young team together but it was clear that the writing was on the wall, especially as finance was still a huge issue. A year later he’d been sacked, the team was being broken up and Chelsea finished bottom. It’s impossible to say whether Eddie McCreadie could have stopped this, but I‘m not alone in believing he probably would.

McCreadie moved to the US and has never been back to the club – a great shame given what he achieved as both player and manager.

You can follow Tim on Twitter @tim_rolls.