I`ve not exactly been prolific of late. SOTN`s have been rarer than a Joey Barton apologist, and yet I could not really not write one. Not today. Not now. I`ll probably knock out a couple more if any of the bierkellers in Old Munchen have wifi, but consider this the definitive, even if it is very long.
I`m sat here at my desk sweating, and it`s not because the aircon isn`t working. My stomach is sour, with that lingering, gnawing upset that threatens to boil over come game time. I keep shaking my head. Is this real? None of my workmates are in the slightest bit interested in the game this weekend. Is there even a game on? They are all, to a man/woman, more interested in Rio Ferdinand`s exclusion from the England squad. This being London, we have a lot of United fans and they are incandescent with rage. The multitudes of Liverpool fans are too busy praying with each other that their KKK campaign (that`s Keep King Kenny, silly!) is going to succeed and that faith is needed as The Chosen One will guide them, much like Moses parting the Red Sea. The Arsenal fans are too busy laughing at the T*ttenham fans and collecting on badly-thought out bets. The ‘Appy ‘Ammers are busy telling everyone who will listen that they are back and will be back to stay. Nobody has seen either of our Charlton fans – they went AWOL after they got promoted and are probably still sleeping it off. I sit here staring at Frank Lampard on my 2012 calendar and eying the Champions League flags I have sticking up like little beacons of blue in a sea of footballing tragedy and ignorance. I cannot help but feel so very, very lucky.
We were bloody lucky against Barca weren`t we? I still cannot believe it. It`s the sort of fairytale story, Roy of the Rovers sort of thing that everyone (me included) thought was sadly lost from the modern game. We may never see another game like that in our lifetimes. I`d like to think that had United or anyone else done that to Barca I`d have a grudging admiration of the sheer balls of it. The sheer brass tacks, the discipline, the power, the strength of will. Of course that is too much to ask for from everyone else, who are happy to applaud QPR parking the bus against City but when we do it its anti-football. The only person who said anything nice about it was Jose, and it is nice to imagine him going nuts in a posh Madrid when Torres slotted it past Valdez. This nicely brings me to the other way that I`m lucky.
Jose is Chelsea. He says he has “a blue rib” – being a Chelsea fan, regardless of what or whoever else you are, never leaves you. It is the greatest gift my father ever gave me. I cringe to imagine what a boring b*stard I`d be without it. Thing is, we`ve been so fortunate over the years to be there whilst footballing history is being made. To see players like Lampard, Drogba, Terry, Robben, Crespo, Zola, Desailly etc in their absolute pomp – playing for us! I`m not going to go over all that “when I started going” stuff, but its true – you couldn`t even dream about that. I remember how I felt when we won the cup in 1997 after a wait that extended beyond my lifetime. It was just insurmountably huge. Now we win cups all the time. How many wonderful days out have we had? How many epic European nights? The names roll off the mind like pound coins from my pocket. Vicenza. Bruges. Barca, several times. Bayern. Liverpool. Valencia. Arsenal. Napoli. Benfica. Stuttgart. We`ve won one European trophy, been denied two CL finals by Referees, and appeared in one already with another to come this weekend. That`s a record that stands up against the very very best. Being Chelsea, the triumphs have been mixed with oceans of misery, heartache, terror, white hot anger, retribution, cynicism and pain. So much pain. Its been littered with dozens of hands-in-face moments where you think?
“I cannot f***ing believe it.”
How ironic then, that the same phrase, perhaps with head in hands as I`ve been doing a few times this morning, applies to the highs as well as the lows. We don`t do things the easy way.
And so to Munich. I fully expect a nerve-shredding, head-in-hands evening whatever happens, and cannot for the life of me see anything but abject pain and misery at the end but then I`m always like that. You should meet my Dad.
See, normally I`d do a natty, insightful (to me) little paragraph about tactics, about how we can get in behind them without Gustavo, how Torres wide right and Bertrand wide right with Mata in the hole is a grand master plan. But you know all that. And frankly, does it matter? If this season has shown anything, its that I officially know sod all about the game. I`m glad I`m not a betting man because I`d be homeless and destitute on the streets and my wife wouldn`t be happy. Nope, tactics piece not required.
I remember when I was writing a SOTN in the run up to the Moscow final I did a Shakespearean call to arms, which I enjoyed writing probably more than my fellow Chelsea enjoyed reading it. I never thought we would win there. I knew they were going to do us. If anything that call to arms for the final was even more apt now. That was not one last time unto the breach, dear friends. This is.
This is the final game in blue for some of the greatest players ever to don our jersey. Several others will be leaving the club over the coming weeks and months. We`re getting a new manager, a new team and soon a new stadium, so you could say this is the end of an era. It is the last knockings of Jose`s Chelsea, much maligned and tampered with since his departure. After this summer we will not be that team any more. I try to envisage what winning the European Cup may feel like and it makes me quite emotional, for winning it but also for the times that have gone before. I can only imagine how the players are feeling.
So instead of imitating the great man, let me just note this down for you. It gets the point across.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit. To his full height.
On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood, and teach them how to war.
And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’
CAREFREE
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