Saturday 20th November 1976. Nottingham Forest v Chelsea. 36 years ago to the day before my day trip to Turin. A different world for Chelsea. Top of the Second Division with a young, exciting team but with the club completely skint, reduced to collecting ‘Cash For Chelsea’ on special trains and in the ground.
Saturday 2nd 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 [...]
There will come a point in time when I sit down and explain to my children precisely what it means to be a Chelsea fan. I was told of the Kings Road swagger embodied by that ‘70s team and the legend of Osgood, Cooke, Bonetti and Harris; the sheer numbers of away support in the [...]
A Chelsea team that has underachieved in the league against a background of player dissent, playing two games a week in April, with an FA Cup Semi final and a European semi final against Barcelona inside four days coming up? Sound familiar? Indeed it is. Welcome to April 1966.
On Sunday Chelsea play away at Old Trafford. About 3,000 Chelsea fans will travel, and going on my experiences in recent seasons, there will be plenty of singing and chanting, but almost certainly very little aggravation, inside or outside the ground. Pre-match paper talk will be about the match itself, and whether Chelsea can rise [...]