Who Are Ya?: 92 Football Clubs – and Why You Shouldn’t Support Them by Kevin Day (Bloomsbury Sport 2020)

 

Chelsea

A friend of mine once became convinced his dad was having an affair after many happy years of marriage. There was no logic to this. His dad just wasn’t the type, for a start, and he was never an energetic man, but there was no shaking my mate and he went full on, with private detectives, the lot. His dad wasn’t having an affair but did see a psychiatrist because of an increasing paranoia that he was being followed.

I now know how my mate felt, because I’m beginning to suspect that my dad may, for years, have been a secret Chelsea fan. As you’ll discover, I don’t support Palace because of him, he supports them because of me. Actually, when I was a very young kid he was never that interested in football, although he quite liked QPR (which is still a fairly accurate description of a lot of QPR fans now).

He definitely wants Palace to win. One of my greatest pleasures in life is phoning him from Selhurst to tell him we’ve just won; and if we haven’t won, he will sigh and say what he always says: ‘We just can’t score a bloody goal.’ He said that after I’d told him we’d just drawn 3-3 with Liverpool.

But there are just these little signs. If we’re playing Chelsea he will say ‘let’s hope it’s a draw’, but not in a way that suggests a draw would be a good result. If Palace are on telly he will look up from his Daily Mirror if he thinks something is happening, but when he watches Chelsea he kicks every ball.

I can’t get a private detective to follow him because he lives with me, but I need to do something to reassure myself he’s still a Palace fan. I don’t want to have to kick him out. A few days ago, I was in the kitchen cooking and listening to football on the radio, when he came positively galloping in from the front room to tell me Chelsea had scored. I said, ‘I know Dad, I heard it, I’m delighted for you.’ That led to two discussions: one about whether I was being sarcastic (yep) and then one about how come I heard it on the radio before he saw it on the telly and whether there was enough of a gap to put a bet on.

I genuinely worry about how enthusiastic he is for a team from an area that he has always dismissed as posh. And the area may be posh, Dad, but that is not a word you would ever have associated with the football club when I was growing up. Even now, awash with Russian billions though they are, there are still enough old-school ‘Chels’ fans to remind me of what a thoroughly well-planned exercise a trip to Stamford Bridge had to be back in the day.

The Accidental Footballer by Pat Nevin (Monoray 2021)

 

Another room was swiftly bypassed on the stairs with a flick of the wrist and a ‘You wouldn’t be interested in that one’ comment. Like hell I wouldn’t be interested, that was the one I wanted to see most, now that he had dismissed it with just a little too much disdain! I was already envisaging a picture of Dorian Gray, but with an ageing Morrissey in the frame. He changed his mind and then relented again after some gentle persuasion. He turned the key in the lock so sluggishly and opened the door to the room so slowly that it was even more obvious that he was embarrassed about its contents. I just wanted to push past him at this point, it was such a painstaking palaver.

The door finally opened to reveal the very last thing I expected to see: a fully kitted-out multigym with all the most modern equipment.

Paradise And Beyond: My Autobiography by Chris Sutton (Black and White Publishing 2011)

Vialli left me out of the FA Cup Final team to play Aston Villa at Wembley in the last competitive game of the season. I went to Ray Wilkins and he marked my card the night before the game that I wouldn’t be involved, not even on the bench. I hadn’t trained as well as I should have for a few weeks prior to that, wasn’t applying myself. This probably made Vialli’s mind up. I was looking forward to the season coming to an end and leaving the club, although nothing was certain at that stage. But I was always involved when I was fit. I really lost my cool at being left out for the final. I guess the previous nine months just came to a head and I exploded.

I spoke to Vialli after breakfast on the Saturday morning. We stood in a corridor. I told him he was a coward for not telling me to my face that I wouldn’t be involved in the final. Then I repeated that insult to him. He tried to explain to me why I was left out. I called him a coward for the third time and he wouldn’t accept it anymore. He told me if I said it one more time, he would knock me out. I didn’t say it for a fourth time. I shouldn’t have said that to him at all, as, over the piece, he was more than fair to me. I regret calling him a coward. It’s not something I’m proud of. I was totally unprofessional. I regret it and it was the last conversation we had. I acted like a spoilt brat. It was my fault. My strength of character let me down, nothing else. I paid the ultimate price that day for taking my foot off the pedal in training in the build-up to the final. It was the correct decision to leave me off the bench. To compound it, I behaved selfishly towards Vialli and he certainly didn’t deserve it on the day of such a big game. I’m still totally ashamed of my actions that day and Vialli deserved much better.

Too good to delete . . . 12 years a draft post

The Red Machine: Liverpool in the '80s: The Players' Stories by Simon Hughes (Mainstream Publishing 2013)

On one occasion, Bates’s ego got the better of him. In the tunnel at Stamford Bridge ahead of a match and with a loose ball at his feet, he asked former Liverpool left-back Joey Jones to tackle him. So Jones did, leaving Bates in a heap.

‘Joey was a tough lad,’ Spackman says. ‘He and Mickey Thomas were nutters. They drove down to London every other day for training from their home in North Wales. Every Monday morning, John Neal would come into the dressing-room and say, “Sorry, lads, training’s been put back an hour – Mickey and Joey are stuck on the motorway.”

‘Because Ken Bates wouldn’t pay for them to stay in a hotel, they’d sleep in the referee’s room at Stamford Bridge on a Friday night before a game. It was a big room with a TV and a sofa, but not the ideal place to sleep if you’re a footballer preparing for kick-off. They’d walk up the King’s Road on a Saturday morning for a fry-up then go back to the ground and wait for everybody else to arrive. It was a ridiculous arrangement.’

Stamford Bridge was hardly a place you’d wish to watch a game of football, never mind spend the night.

‘It was big but a bit of a dump,’ Spackman continues. ‘There was one huge stand, but the rest of the ground seemed so far away from the pitch because of the greyhound track. You needed 25,000 in there to create any sort of atmosphere. The pitch was terrible, too. I was used to a nice bowling-green surface at Bournemouth, but at Chelsea – a club then in the Second Division – the pitch was a dustbowl. It made it difficult to play pretty football. Over the years, that’s probably why Liverpool found it difficult going there.

(From the chapter, 'SOUTHERNER, Nigel Spackman')

Back in the old world

"Slash it! Slash it!" High Five!

The second eleven:

Owen thinks he's Ron Swanson. We just wish he'd eat like Ron Swanson.

Firefox is doing my nut in. Nine out of ten masochists say it's their web browser of choice.

When I first heard that Ed Milliband was standing for the leadership of the Labour Party I immediately thought of the Guardian's Steve Bell. I'm not so daft after all.

My longstanding loathing of Chelsea is being seriously undermined at the moment by their current away kit. I haven't been enamoured this much by a football kit in a long time. In fact, it was probably the Inter Milan away kit from the late nineties that last caught my eye. And that was a nightmare as well; I had a soft spot for Roma at the time. Thankfully the rapaciousness and greed of modern football means that Chelski will replace all their kits at the end of the season, and that wee niggle can melt away. Only eight more months to hold out.

I wouldn't say no to the Caramac Kit Kat (number 29), but surely the editions from Japan are photoshopped? (hat tip to 'Itziko_Supersta' over at Urban 75.)

'Therese' by The Bodines kicked into iTunes last night. I'd forgotten I didn't realise until now what a good record it was.

My last pair of glasses lasted me five years. And, then, it was only because the dog snapped the frames and I had to get them replaced. The frames of my current glasses have fallen apart after only three months. Apparently it's the fault of the manufacturer but I bet we still get fleeced by the opticians. It rains. It pours. A bastard tsunami is coming down Ocean Parkway.

Finally got round to watching the first series of Gavin and Stacey the other night. Only checked it out because it turned up on Netflix Instant. I know I'm supposed to hate it because of Corden - yep, I did try and watch one of his World Cup shows - but I totally understand why it met with the success that it did. Likeable characters. Easy going humour. And Ruth Jones is a star.

*Beep*Beep*Beep*Beep*

I totally get that quote of Churchill, of "It is all right to rat, but you can’t re-rat . . . ", but I have been listening to Maximo Park again in recent weeks and I'm not embarrassed to admit it. It'll be Hard-Fi next. (Spot my gift of footballing prophecy in that old blog post.)

Sheila Rowbotham is speaking in New York on Friday at Bluestockings. I should try and get along to hear her speak. I last saw her speak at Conway Hall in 1998. At a commemorative meeting for the Communist Manifesto. (150th anniversary and all that.) Standing room only in the main hall and packed balconies with the other speakers including Maggie Steed, Julie Christie and an actress from Eastenders whose name now escapes me.

La la la la la la, I can't hear you.

It's Tuesday morning and I still can't bring myself to watch the Match of the Day highlights.

If I haven't watched them, Chelski still haven't won the title.

Genius. Stick on another episode of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

Football quote of the day

Ooh, I wish I'd thought of that:

"Wayne Bridge has just texted John Terry, "That's how you play away from home you ****""

That wee gem of wit comes courtesy of 'Smackhead' and the comments section of the Guardian's report of today's game.

Does that qualify as 'esprit du tunnel'?

Running gags

Chelski in the Champions League . . . an uproarious joke that just keeps on giving and giving.

Hat tip to a kind soul over at Urban 75.

The toffeemen and the diddymen

Jose Baxter? Love the name, but the bloke's from Bootle!

Chelsea

Everton

The Guardian thinks that Chelsea will end the season as champions. They won't even finish in the top three.

Mixing Footie and Politics (2)

Chelsea got their man finally, and what a man:

"[He] tortured a lot but there is no illiteracy in Chile" - Big Phil offers a Thatcheresque critique of General Pinochet's leadership.

That quote's courtesy of the Guardian Sports Blog, where they've paced out 'Big Phil' Scolari's football life in quotes.

What would've been the Guardian Sport Desk's witty rejoinder if it had been the same worded quote but instead of Scolari talking up Pincochet, he was talking up Fidel Castro instead?

The bloke sounds like a dick, anyway. Actually worse than that, he sounds like Big Vern with trackie bottoms on.

Next season's post match interviews should be fun grimly fascinating. Odds on he has a tear up with Wenger before it ever gets to the point where him and Fergie exchange touchline spittle.

Anyone but Portugal for the Euro Championship.

Don't Laugh

It's not funny.

Smack My Gob . . . and Smack It Again

Despite all the rumours coming out of Stamford Bridge these last twelve months, I did not see that coming. And it turns out that ickle Rosenburg were the tipping point.

If Abramovich wants elan to go with the trophies, he should head up to the Hawthorns and snaffle Tony Mowbray, but that's simply me speculating via a day trip to my alternative universe. My magic ball says even money on Dennis Wise being the next manager of Chelski* (after Hiddink turns them down), with Bernd Schuster, Frank Rijkaard, Claudio Ranieri and Carlo Ancelotti currently on speed dial to their respective lawyers to ensure that there are no loopholes in their contracts.

However much I hate Chelsea and all that they represent, I think I miss José Mourinho already. Strange that.

*That'll be the same magic ball which predicted that Wayne Biggins was the new Jimmy McGrory, and that Diesel Park West were the next Beatles.

Phil Neville's Everton teammates politely ask him if he meant to score an own goal for Man United

What an absolutely brilliant result.

I hate Chelsea more than the Sparts hate the International Bolshevik Tendency. That's how much I hate Abramovich's mercenaries.

Just sat through the Chelsea versus Bolton game on Fox Soccer Channel, becoming increasingly exasperated by Drogba's histrionics and Bolton defence's desire to shoot themselves in the foot by trying to pass to Chelsea forwards in and around the Bolton penalty box. (They were that bad, they thankfully missed.)

It was wonderful watching the unfolding drama of the crowd at Stamford Bridge as the tv cameras panned across the changing fizzogs of the Chelski faithful as they went from being the shiny happy faces of fans whose team were winning 2-1 in the spring sun, whilst their rivals were losing 2-0 away from home, to becoming a seeming open audition of emo mums, dads and kids as they witnessed the sudden seismic shift in fortunes of Davies's equalising goal for Bolton with the accompanying news coming through from Goodison that Manchester United had taken a 3-2 lead via a Wayne Rooney goal.

Chelsea fans hadn't looked that miserable since they heard the false rumour that Gordon Brown was thinking of putting a special tax on id bracelets.

Loved it that Phil Neville scored an own goal against his old club to make it 2-2. Never mind that I'm still getting regular hits to the blog via the 'Gary Neville' + 'socialist' google search; he's the wrong Neville brother. Phil Neville is my working class hero.

Also sweet to note that Chris Eagles scored the fourth goal for United in their 4-2 win. What's the big deal with that? Only that Chris Eagles has now officially replaced Julia Bolino as the most famous person ever to have attended Longdean Comprehensive School.