Its hard to know what to write about sometimes. I get the impression very few of the people here even notice anyway, but write I must, and I shall.
Today I’d like to talk about things changing. Last season really brought it home to me how things are changing and how rapidly the changes are happening. Its easy to take it all for granted sometimes. But when you sit there and wonder about it all, it takes on a slightly surreal edge.
Lets rewind 15 years. It is 1995 and we’ve just gone out of the Cup Winner’s Cup to Real Zaragoza after getting battered in Spain 3-0, and despite a valiant effort, not quite being able to pull back the deficit at the Bridge. Steve Clarke won Player of the Season the previous season and hulking great ginger Norwegian Erland Johnsen has just won it for this season. We are a tidy little attacking outfit, managed by Glenn Hoddle, who concede a few, not many, and who play open, direct attacking football. I’ve been to more games this season than ever before, and am in my tenth year of coming to the Bridge. At 16 years old am starting to awaken to the delights of the beer, football and curry combination that goes on to serve me in dubious stead ever since. Most of the country like us, as an attacking, inoffensive (on the pitch anyway), nice to watch football team that you like to see do well. Stamford Bridge is rundown and dilapidated on some sides, and a building site on the other. Man United are totally dominant, and Newcastle, Arsenal and Liverpool are there or thereabouts as well. We are a few points off the relegation zone, as we have been for a few seasons now. Paul Elliot has announced his retirement after not making it back from that shocking assault by Dean Saunders, and Jakob Kjeldbjerg does likewise after a career ender suffered at Millwall. Nonetheless, our team of Wise, Stein, Spencer, Peacock and the rest are known as mighty midgets. Fleck, Donaghy and Hopkin have departed and Scotty Minto, David Rocastle (RIP) and Paul Furlong have come in. Minto goes on to play a lot of games for us, Rocky sadly less so but does well whenever called on, and Furs, a then big money move from Watford, ends the season being our main threat up front. Others that stick in the memory are Stevie Clarke, Eddie Newton, Frank Sinclair, Dmitri Kharine, Craig Burley, Andy Myers, Kevin Hitchcock, Nigel Spackman and the debut of Michael ‘Doobs’ Duberry midway through the season. We were a good team but not great. We’d not won anything major for 25 years (although the Rumbelows Cup and Zenith Data Systems cup were great at the time), and survival in the EPL and a good cup run was our idea of a good season.
The end of that season is regarded, by me at least, as the calm before the storm, right before it all changed. An unknown whippersnapper called Ruud something from some pub team in Italy signs in the close-season as well! Hoddle played him at Sweeper which made no sense to anyone, Ruud incluuded. But then he moved alongside Wisey in the middle and its fair to say he was a revelation. The first truly, honest-to-God world class player we’d seen at the Bridge (in Chelsea blue) for a very long time, and the supporters took to him immediately. I remember watching him on his debut and wondering, with the greatest of respect to him, what he was doing at Chelsea. Tall, languid, breathtakingly calm and sublimely gifted on the ball. As we all know, Sparky Hughes, Robbie Di Matteo, Super Dan Petrescu and God Zola followed soon after and we began to grow in stature as a team, culminating in us winning the FA Cup in 1997 which still to this day gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.
The amazing thing now is how much has changed. We’ve won the title three times since that time. We’re one of the very biggest and most successful clubs in the world now. Newcastle got relegated last season, Liverpool are a mid-table selling club now and Man City, who were relegated several times in the interim, are now one of the richest and most powerful clubs in the world. Stamford Bridge is now a football-themed consumer product package, and there is a waiting list for season tickets. Nottingham Forest, Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday, all massive clubs and all better teams than us in 1995, are nowhere to be seen, having all dropped off the face of the earth and into footballing obscurity in the lower leagues (in Leeds’ case good riddance). Our fanbase is now enormous. I’m living out here in Singapore now and there are as many Chelsea shirts as United and Liverpool, which is just mind-boggling if you remember back to the early 90s when you would actually say hello to a fellow Blue on the street if you saw him, because you were two brothers. We did not have any glamour fans then. We did not have a Rangoon/Chiitose/Paramaraibo/Port Harcourt/Adelaide/Kansas City supporters club then, or if we did, it was one Brit who got posted out there for work and who couldn’t wait to get back. EVERYONE wears colours to the Bridge now. It is a riot of blue in the walk along Fulham Road past the station (which bears no resemblance to the clapped out, grimy old tube platform we knew and loved back then), whereas in 1995 there were much fewer replica kits being worn in and around the stadium, for a variety of reasons which those who know do not need me to explain.
Makes you wonder how things might look in 15 years time though, doesnt it?
I’ll still be buying a BSE filth burger from the burger van and then regretting it all game. I’ll still be laughing my head off at ‘Chelsea Allouette’ in whatever guise the SoBar is in then. We might even not be at the Bridge at all, but at a nice shiny new stadium somewhere south of the river. Carlo will probably not be in charge, but JT might be instead. Roman’s son Arkady will be running the club from the boardroom and the press will still be on about how he looks bored and is going to leave. Jeffrey Bruma or Josh McEachran might be coming up for a testimonial match, maybe having broken Lamps’ appearance record (but not Chopper’s – that will never be broken). We’ll all be looking back fondly on how great The Lampard Years were, and what a magical player he was. Maybe we’ll have a new hero then, some snotty-nosed 6 or 7 year old kid running around now might end up being that man. Hopefully we’ll have won the Champions League by then. England will still not have won anything. Liverpool will still be telling us that it is their season and then coming apart by November. Arsenal will still have won nothing playing pretty triangles. Paul Furlong will still be playing in the lower leagues. I’ll still be writing articles for Vital-Chelsea, and our readership will still be trying desperately to find proper reasons to hate me. Merlin will still be Merlin and Cendrowski will still be using too many polysyllabic words in his articles. Lindy will still be lurking and not posting. Squiddy will be Squiddy. Daspecial1 will still be a soap dodging student type and wont have a job yet but will still be going on away trips. Everyone at CFC-Net will still hate us. The press will still hate us.
Its comforting to know how much things change, some things stay the same.
CAREFREE!!!!
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