BRIDGE BOOS GIVES LOYAL CHELSEA THE BLUES
The Filth and Fury – There was a time when I was more proud to be Chelsea because of the fans than the team. On the pitch we were perennial underachievers, often fielding players who had little or no interest in anything other than themselves. Off it, we followed those players to the ends of the earth, cheered them until their ears rang and generally threw ourselves body and soul behind the cause that was Chelsea Football Club. And, time after time, those same players let us down when it really mattered.
I’ve seen Chelsea relegated three times, and players from those teams have come onto the pitch in recent times and been cheered to the rafters as Neil Barnett has walked them around the pitch. I’ve seen Chelsea come within touching distance of dropping into the old Division Three and stood squarely alongside 17,000 others after the final match of the season, waiting for the players to re-emerge so that we could applaud their efforts in avoiding relegation. I saw Micky Fillery take the applause of all four corners of the stadium a couple of years ago, and commented that it was the most ground I had ever seen him cover in an afternoon. A few weeks back I saw John Hollins receive a standing ovation from all and sundry inside Stamford Bridge. No problem, they are probably better and more forgiving people than I am, but this was the same John Hollins who, as the Blues’ manager, arrogantly tore apart a side on the verge of success, and also told the Daily Mail last year of his preference for Arsenal over Chelsea. Nothing personal, I think he’s a nice man who was a good player, and I’ve met and been interviewed by his son and found him to be a particularly nice guy too, but is he really Chelsea?
On Saturday at Stamford Bridge I saw the return of a guy who won two Premier League titles and an FA Cup with Chelsea. A bloke who suffered a nasty ankle break wearing the famous blue shirt and fought back gamely to overcome mental problems associated with returning to football after such an horrendous injury. I saw the return of the guy who scored one of the most famous goals in the history of our football club, and if you don’t know the goal I’m referring to I’m not going to explain it, because I can only assume you were one of the numpties who chose to boo him.
For what it’s worth, I don’t agree with Wayne Bridge’s reaction to the news that John Terry had a fling with his ex-girlfriend. Firstly, I have an ex-wife and I really don’t care who or what she’s doing these days – it’s none of my business. As a professional footballer, I certainly wouldn’t be giving up the chance to represent my country on the biggest stage of all just because another member of the squad had nailed my ex-girlfriend. A current girlfriend would be a different matter, but not a girl I had split with six months previously. However, there is a reason I started this paragraph with the words ‘For what it’s worth’, because the fact is, my opinion of what has gone on between Terry, Bridge and Vanessa Perroncel is irrelevant. It’s a private matter between the three of them and Terry’s wife, the only real victim in this whole saga.
What happened at the Bridge on Saturday left me disappointed and angry. Not just because I saw an old school Chelsea implosion on the pitch, one that took me back to the Eighties and early Nineties; not just because we naively allowed two such odious human beings as Bellamy and Tevez run riot on our patch; not just because Carlo lost the plot in Ranieriesque fashion with his bizarre substitutions and tactical faux pas (is faux pas the plural of faux pas? I don’t know but I’m going with it). No, the reason I’m so angry is because Chelsea Football Club, its captain, its players, its management and its supporters allowed themselves to be beaten by the grubby, filthy, hypocritical media of this country. We let them get exactly what they wanted.
There are no exceptions in this. It’s a complete fallacy that the sports writers do not involve themselves in the tawdry side of journalism. They’ve all chipped in with their bile over the past month, just as they always do. Who remembers the way they treated a decent man like Graham Taylor when he failed as England manager? It’s was spiteful and relentless. Before him, it was the great and dignified Bobby Robson who, when he was struggling to get results as England boss, suddenly found himself at the centre of ridiculous, salacious stories about multiple affairs and having sex with women on the Portman Road pitch during his time at Ipswich. Nasty, spiteful lies that could cause a man to lose everything – all to sell a few more copies of their rags. When Robson took England to one of the World Cups (1986 or 1990, I can’t remember which), journalist Nigel Clarke was interviewed at the airport on his way to the tournament and openly admitted that he and his fellow scribes were going out there with the intention of slaughtering the manager. That’s the way the English press get behind the national team. In true journalist style, in the last few years of his life Robson became the darling of the media, elevated to the status of ‘Football’s Last Great Gentleman’ by the same filth who went out of their way to break him.
Of course, plenty of people have had their say on John Terry over the past month. I’m told that just yesterday, Stan Collymore was berating JT on Talksport for his failure to be a good role model. Stan, a woman-beating dogger should not involve himself in conversations about role models, footballers or otherwise. Fact. Likewise, the insufferably smug Gary Lineker should rein it in a bit on Match of the Day, unless the stories I’ve heard about him from what I consider to be extremely good sources are entirely wrong.
Going back to the subject of Talksport contributors, and opening up a new thread about third-rate footballers who still seem to be eeking some kind of meagre existence out of spouting rubbish about the game, I was interested to read former Colchester United striker Perry Groves’ comments about going over the top on JT if he came face-to-face with him on the pitch. What a prat. One can only hope they do meet one day, because I know who my money’s on and it isn’t the perennial Arsenal squad player who made so few starts for the Gooners that he was known as the lesser spotted chav while he was bench-warming there. Or at least should have been. During his time at Highbury, Groves was to Arsenal what David May was to Manchester United and Harry Kewell to Liverpool: a bit-part player who contributed little or nothing to their successes, but celebrated trophy wins as if they’d won them single-handedly.
With regard to the team that beat us on Saturday, well, the truth is I have nothing against Manchester City as a club. The game was built up into something more significant than it should have been by the low-lives of the media, and a lot of people bought into it. City were atrocious for much of the game – they are not a good team – but cottoned on to a very basic formula for beating us. Good luck to them, they’ve exposed a weakness that Chelsea need to address urgently. Where City did let themselves down, though, is in the vile conduct of a minority of their players.
I personally have always despised Carlos Tevez for his antics in the 2008 Champions League Final, when he tried to profit from Chelsea kicking the ball out of play so that a United player could get treatment. It isn’t cheating by the letter of the law but it is morally wrong, and it tells you everything you need to know about the character of the person behind it. Tevez is an Argentinian footballer, say no more. Other people I have seen display these charming attributes are Teddy Sheringham at Spurs and Leeds United’s Alan Smith; so you can see the sort of people we are talking about. Tevez was clearly looking to inflame the situation yesterday, and I sincerely hope Terry had the opportunity to say hello to the horrible little creep in the tunnel at the end of the game.
Even more appalling than pretty-boy Tevez was Craig Bellamy, who appeared to call Terry a twat as the pair shook hands before the game, and then gave a disgraceful interview to Sky Sports (who also should be embarrassed by their coverage of the game. The magnificent Martin Tyler commentating on a non-handshake: how the mighty have fallen) in which he criticised the Chelsea man for his off-field behaviour. Erm, excuse me, but is this not the same Craig Bellamy who in the past has:
- Been charged for attacking two women in a nightclub.
- Attacked Liverpool team-mate John Arne Riise with a golf club.
- Been booted out of Newcastle for sending what were described by assistant manager Terry McDermott as ‘vile’ text messages to his captain, Alan Shearer.
- Run thirty yards to assault a Manchester United supporter who had run onto the Old Trafford pitch earlier this season.
I’m sorry, but it seems to me that a lecture from Craig Bellamy to John Terry is akin to a shoplifter receiving a finger-wagging from Fred West.
Finally we have a character by the name of Nigel De Jong, a City midfielder from Holland who has done little to justify his healthy price tag since moving to Eastlands, and who apparently gave an interview to a Dutch reporter after the game in which he stated that everybody at City was behind Bridge because Terry broke a footballer’s code that you don’t have an affair with a team-mate’s wife. All very noble up until that point, but when you read the remainder of his comments, that this only applies to team-mates and that shagging the wife of an opponent is a different matter, you probably get a better idea of the tawdry life and upbringing of this moron. I wonder if the words ‘slimy little scumbag’ are running through your head like they are mine at this very moment.
So as you can see, there are a lot of hypocrites, hand-wringers and half-wits who have had their say on John Terry and Chelsea in the last few days, but one notable exception is Wayne Bridge. Apart from a few tabloid quotes from ‘friends’ and ‘sources close to the City man’ (in other words, fabrications) Bridgey has conducted himself in a dignified and credit worthy manner. So why did I see on Match of the Day, a Chelsea ‘supporter’ sitting in the front row of the West Stand, shouting “f****** prick” at Wayne? Oh, the irony. And, I ask again, why were there boos ringing round the ground whenever he touched the ball.
With the immaculate timing he used to display as a Chelsea player, as I am writing this a good friend of mine, Mickey Thomas, has just called me from Wembley, where he will be commentating on the League Cup Final, to tell me that he has just had an argument with BBC Radio 5 numpty Alan Green for calling the Chelsea supporters on Saturday a disgrace. Mickey told Green that it wasn’t all of us, which is true enough, but it was far too many. And those that did it played right into the hands of the nation’s scumbag press and media.
So please, Chelsea, when City come to the Bridge next season, make Tevez’s ears bleed, make De Jong’s ears bleed, make Bellamy bleed – but when Wayne Bridge sets foot on the pitch, remember this: ‘Follow follow follow, there were only three minutes to go… ‘.
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27 Responses to BRIDGE BOOS GIVES LOYAL CHELSEA THE BLUES
Great article, But I find the people booing around me are not nouveaux fans but the same people who find scrapping with away fans even though they are forty or fifty the thing to do.
I recognise faces from the so called “good old days” doing this, The self righteous lot who were peacocking around looking for Cardiff last week, still wearing the Stone Island jumper they were wearing 15 years ago.
Wayne Bridge, I done my ankle in at Highbury that night celebrating your goal, it was up there with Kerry’s goal in 84, you will last in memory forever as A Chelsea Legend.
Kelvin Barker = The voice of reason. You’ve spelt it out brilliantly. Last Saturday was truely embarressing for any real Chelsea fan.
“Finally we have a character by the name of Nigel De Jong, a City midfielder from Holland who has done little to justify his healthy price tag since moving to Eastlands”
Apart from single-handedly playing your supposed midfield off the park the other month in our first win over you.
what happened to bridge was a joke but something i wasnt really surprised about given the way some of our ‘fans’ behave sometimes. i remember returning from moscow after the cl final and my mate told me he had watched the game around chelsea and after there were these same ‘fans’ smashing windows in shops peoples houses and cars. its things like this and bridge getting booed on saturday that almost make me be embarrased to be a chelsea fan sometimes but this article is spot on mate. Its encouraging to read that i wasnt the only one ashamed of them. And for the record bridgeys goal against arsenal is 100% my favourite chelsea moment of all time. just a shame these idiots dont get behind the team with as much passion as they showed slagging bridge off when we are losing. but with the success of a team it always results in these plastic fans jumping on the bandwaggon. keep up the good work. come on chels
Excellent article. Exactly what I’m thinking. The booing was an utter disgrace, it was just plain unacceptable.
(And the plural of “faux pas” is indeed “faux pas”)
Man City fan here. Like ‘Gooner’ stated, the de Jong comment was tongue in cheek one suspects!
A bit harsh on Tevez, who was obviously sticking up for his friend (a lesson Terry should take), although I can understand the Bellamy argument for the most part (I’d still argue what Terry did was worse).
Im not here to specifically talk about the Terry/Bridge issue, just to say that the article highlights some good points about supporter behaviour and short memories. I know Terry is captain and held in high regard at the Bridge, but its hardly Waynes fault for escalating the story, he has done nothing wrong and certainly does not merit booing after his time at Chelsea. Terry brought this on himself, its definately not Waynes doing.
A lot of Chelsea fans have got their heads on their shoulders and I applaud their recognition of Bridge for his time at Chelsea, and infamous goal.
The ones booing him and swearing at him every time he touched the ball should be ashamed. It HAS tarnished your club and made a bad name for the rest of the fans – the ones who applauded him when he was subbed. That much is evident reading around club forums and the comments on major news articles.
I like Chelsea and have no malice towards the club, but I hope that these glory hunter boo boys go sit and watch a video of THAT goal and learn some history about the club and players. They owe it to the rest of the fantastic supporters.
Oh please! You’ve all bought into the papers’ “Saint Wayne” line to a large degree.
Wayne Bridge has had chances to end this, instead he allowed John Terry to be treated like Pol Pot, Hitler and Stalin combined by our newspapers. His cynically timed “retirement” and handshake snub were pathetic. She was his EX! He needs to get over it on his own. And No, I’m not a JCL.
I have been a fan for 42 years and found saturdays fiasco pretty odious from all sides. I rarely get to see the chels pitchside these days due to cost but it doesnt make me any less loyal. I thought that maybe for the good of sport and as an example to young people maybe Bridge and Terry could have shook hands and been professional for the duration of the game and bellemy for the sake of mankind could have kept his mouth shut but then maybe i just want to live in an ideal world. I don’t agree with the booing, bridge is a quality player who did a wonderful job at chels but had to move on to forward his career. should we as chelsea fans not respect that? dont know if i agree with ancelotti but maybe i’m in the minority thinking that chels is no further on than when jose left.
Really great article – I agree with every point you’ve made. After only watching the game on tv it’s nice to know that there are a great number of chelsea fans who felt the booing was out of order too.
Thank you
Decent article but my guess is that De Jong was joking.
Absolutely spot-on!
City fan in peace. Good well reasoned article and in the main I agree with the points raised. We will fail to agree on your description of some of our players, but that’s natural. The point is that the two camps were always going to support their own man and thats again natural, what I couldn’t accept was the booing of Bridge by a voluble minority and even worse the snarling idiots who were clearly visible each time he took a throw in etc. Lots of mates up here who are Chelsea, long term and attenders in the main, they too were disappointed. I’m calmer today and after reading this article it has reassured me that the image I had of the average Chelsea fan, can revert to the opinion I had before Saturday.
Good luck for the rest of the season and I hope we can help you to the title.
Absolutely spot-on.
Couldn’t believe what I was hearing when Bridgey was getting booed. What is the matter with these idiots? Just goes to show eactly what type of people frequent the Bridge nowadays. Those that were booing him have probably only been watching Chelsea for three or four years.
A great player during his time with us, and scorer of the goal that provided me – and many others – with our happiest ever moment as a Blues fan, not to mention the fact that he was the innocent party in this whole saga, and he got that treatment.
The worrying thing, is that Bridge will probably think those muppets represent every Chelsea fan when, clearly, they don’t.
Would they have shaken Terry’s hand?
If you read this Bridgey, we’re sorry mate, and you’ll always be a Chelsea legend in the majority of our eyes.
I echo all the other comments – thought it showed a large minority of our fan base for what it is – bunch of glory hunters who don’t know how to spell the word support let alone know what it really means (they’re probably still not over Mourinho leaving!). I hope when we next play Arsenal we don’t sing the ‘follow, follow’ song – otherwise it will expose us a bunch of hypocrites – wouldn’t bet on it though. Saturday encapsulated a lot of what has gone wrong in recent weeks (both on and off the pitch) – and yes – we played right into the media’s agenda – well done.
Spot on mate. I was stunned that some of our half wit supporters had a good at Bridge. He was a top boy when he was with us, and has done no wrong.
I am still angry at our goalkeeping situation, and the ref’s rubbish performance in not stopping scarface from fouling Terry & Riccy everytime the ball went in the air. If we look at the game again we should have been 4 up before Hillarious took over, but I guess that is the way the day went.
Great article but I disagree with the title “Bridge boos give Loyal Chelsea fans the blues”. If you boo an ex player why are you disloyal?? Gordon Durie, Gus Poyet, who I might add calls Chelsea us and we when he talks about Chelsea, were regulary booed by “loyal” fans. Ok they went to Spurs, but what reception will Gudjohnson get when we play them and what treatment would Joe Cole get from Chelsea fans if he moves to Spurs? The fact that so many people booed does not mean they were wrong to, it means they see things very differently to those that kept quiet. Wayne Bridge will always be a hero in the fact that his goal against Arsenal put us through in a magical Euro night. But he has not been whiter than white in the aftermath. The press and media have had a field day. Let us not forget that Chelsea made Bridge a very wealthy man and he has now taken the Man city money which comes from his sucess at Chelsea. Take a look at the handshake thing again. Others see it as a well worked snub designed to make JT look foolish, and it worked. In my 42 years as a loyal fan I have never booed a current Chelsea player and never will. But I will boo ex players if I feel the need to. That does not make me any less of a “loyal” fan.
Great article, relived many years of supporting Chelsea through thick and thin reading this article. Absolutely spot on regarding the “holier than thou” hypocrites whether they be low life “journalists” or players that most of us wouldn’t want to have next to us in the pub let alone our homes.
JT is no worse than most guys in his position. Wrong though it was how many players on the pitch on any full programme weekend can hold up their hands in true innocence? I played at a modest level for a few shillings in the day and only was interested in how well a guy played for 90 minutes not what he did after “work” Thanks again.
Love this article. Its rare to see an article written with passion yet be so intelligent at the same time! Awesome! Your points are dead on right!
Every word hits the spot Kelvin, superb. Should be must-read for Chelsea fans.
Follow Follow Follow… there were only 3 minutes to go… it was Wayne Bridge’s goal that sent us out of control and knocked the Arsenal out of the euro.
There you go, I have done it for you Kelvin. This guy should have been given the same ovation as he got last season when he came back to SB for the first time since his departure from our great team.
At the time I remember every fan I spoke to said they were gutted that he decided to leave, but we all knew why he had to go, a player of his ability to only play a handful of games in a season is not what he or Chelsea needed. He was just unlucky that the best left back in the world (in my opinion) had signed for Chelsea. So I for one, was left gutted that he got ‘over the top’ stick from quite alot of Chelsea’fans’. It was bang out of order. Craig Bellamy? What a toss pot! My defence is closed… it’s just a big shame that Chelsea’s defence wasn’t closed yesterday and for that matter Vanessa Peroncell’s legs too!
Great article – though you could have left out the Argentinian reference.
It’s good to hear a voice of reason. I’ve only heard one other – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/22/charlie-brooker-terry-kay-woods-adultery
When I heard the booing I thought does that mean we have forgotten what Bridge did against Le Arse. Only for some and for others they didn’t even know about what he did for the club.
I despair for our support these days. Instant gratification and perfection is a minimum… roll on the robots.
These are the words of a true fan. Unfortunately, Kelvin, I see less and less of them when I come to the Bridge nowadays.
It is a credit to Bridgey that he has kept his mouth shut throughout this affair. If only for the goal against Arsenal, he will always remain a legend in my eyes.
The best article i have read on the whole circus of events. Fellow chelsea fans, lets make sure this article gets everywhere because this is exactly what true blues think.
Kelvin, that’s simply a great article.
Thanks.
I agree with everything….and by the way, as an aside, we heard from a German/Dutch contact earlier this month that Nigel De Jong has a lovely wife and ermm, a ‘regular’ high class hooker. We don’t believe a word of it ;-).
Great article, says it all!
Good piece Kelvin… I can see it has really needled you. And you’re quite right that the Media hyped this into something bigger than it should have been. Patrick Barclay et al admitted they had come for ‘the handshake’and not the football match. Sky departed from their usual schedule to watch the teams emerge from the dressing rooms into the tunnel and everything that followed. So people were worked into a frenzy… and like the youth you referred to when Bridge was taking the throw-in, not all have the same memory set or ability to judge for themselves what has gone on. As you know, I think he has been a Baby about this, and his ex girlfriend is his EX-girlfriend, but its very true, there are MANY others who merited this treatment more than Wayne Bridge. Sadly. I’ll be willing them on in a few weeks time, when they play Man U and Arsenal. Odious they are – but Football rivalries do funny things to us all.