The game I refer to took place at Filbert Street on 15 April 1989, the day of the Hillsborough tragedy.  Although Ken Bates made a few low-key observations about the shenanigans of the day, the whole matter was understandably swept under the carpet in the wave of horror which blanketed football in the days and weeks following the death of 96 Liverpool fans at the FA Cup semi-final.  But to recount, Chelsea travelled to Leicester on the back of a seven-month unbeaten run in the league, needing a win to seal promotion back to Division One following relegation a year earlier.  Thousands of Blues fans made the journey to the East Midlands, and there was the usual tension surrounding a fixture which had a long history of being as eventful off the pitch as on it.

The away terrace was packed that day and the referee, a Mr Fitzharris, had concerns that the Chelsea fans might try to invade the pitch should promotion be sealed.  He asked the Chelsea players that, should they win, they didn’t go over to their own fans at the end of the game to celebrate.  Understandably, the players refused his request.

During that game – and there is video evidence to support all of this – Chelsea had one man, Peter Nicholas, sent off for criticising Fitzharris; a legitimate goal disallowed; a penalty awarded against them which nobody inside the ground appealed for; and conceded a goal scored by a player who was at least five yards offside when he received the ball.  Joe McLaughlin, a centre-half who rarely troubled referees, was booked for telling Fitzharris that the only man who was going to start a riot was him.  

Everybody at Filbert Street that day knew that something strange had occurred.  Nobody understood why at the time, but the expected investigation into the match never took place because, quite rightly, football found itself with something far more important to deal with.  In the end, it was the publication of Dave Beasant’s autobiography, Tales of the Unexpected, which shed some light on the real reasons why Fitzharris did what he did.

Since then we have had some shocking refereeing performances involving Chelsea – as have most teams.  We had David Elleray in the 1994 FA Cup Final.  Was he a cheat?  No, he was an arrogant little man who loved the limelight.  He awarded a fair penalty followed by a dubious one.  He went on TV after the game and told Des Lynam that both were clear penalties and that he had not made a mistake with either.  He then wrote an autobiography in which he admitted that he knew as soon as he pointed to the spot that he had got the second one wrong.  So, perhaps dishonest as well as arrogant – a fine example for a pompous Harrow schoolmaster to set to his pupils – but probably not a cheat. 

I remember a lively old night in 1995 when Millwall came to the Bridge for an FA Cup replay.  Martin Bodenham was the man in charge, and he denied the Blues three clear-cut penalties, two of which should have resulted in red cards for the culprits.  The highlights were shown on BBC that night and Alan Hansen went as far as to praise the Chelsea players for maintaining their composure in light of the referee’s performance.  However, I’ve always believed Bodenham’s refusal to deal with those incidents properly was more to do with his fear of upsetting an already volatile away following, who were sat in a temporary stand behind the Shed end goal and had easy access to the pitch.  Not a cheat, but perhaps a coward.  Bodenham’s actions backfired when the Chelsea fans reacted instead, and invaded the pitch themselves at the end of the game, having a mini-riot, albeit that Bodenham had long since escaped to the sanctuary of the referee’s room.

The recent evolution of the professional referee is where the cause for concern kicks in.  Referees with agents – what’s that all about?  Referees being sponsored (ahem, by a company owned by Tony Fernandes, also owner of QPR); Refs driving around in sponsored cars, on Harley Davidson’s, being paid to lend their name to betting companies (yes Mike Dean, you) and preening themselves like gods as they take to the pitch (you again, Mr Dean).  It’s a dangerous precedent that is being set when a well-paid referee chooses to retire a year early, and uses that final year to accumulate as much controversy as possible to fill the book that he is writing.  Have a look at Graham Poll’s conduct in his last year as a referee and decide for yourself whether you think his integrity should be called into question.

If the FA themselves have any integrity, which I somehow doubt, Chris Foy’s performance at Loftus Road last Sunday, and more generally his treatment of Chelsea in games he has refereed involving the club, should be investigated.  No word of a lie, when I saw who the referee was on Sunday morning, I immediately feared the worst.  When I met my mate at White City before kick-off and told him who was in charge, his one word response was ‘shit!’  Foy now boasts what he no doubt considers a proud record of five Chelsea players red carded by his own, inadequate hands.  But it’s more than just the red cards that have to be looked at – those shown to Drogba on Sunday and Maniche against West Ham in 2006 were fair shouts – it’s as much to do with the curious number of 50/50 decisions he gives against us, the soft penalties awarded to opponents and the stonewall penalties denied us.  And please, Sky Sports News, don’t go getting Dermot Gallagher on the next day to tell us that Foy did everything right.  He might look like your favourite malnourished old uncle, but he was as bad as the next man when it came to applying the rulebook to suit.  We found that out to our cost twice in one season during Ruud Gullit’s reign, when he first allowed Ray Parlour to swing a boot up Graeme Le Saux’s backside and then, later that season at Highbury, waved only a yellow at Steve Bould after he hauled back Gianluca Vialli as the Italian bore down on goal.  People in glasshouses, and all that.

Of course, last Sunday’s defeat wasn’t all about the officials.  The team didn’t turn up in the first half and at times it was embarrassing to watch.  David Luiz is racking up penalty concessions and yellow cards at Frank Sinclair’s best rate, and should not be anywhere near the back-four at the moment.  When I attended a meeting with Bruce Buck and some of the cfcuk boys back in April, I raised my concerns about Luiz with the chairman, who told me that his impetuous tendencies are the price you pay for having such talent.  I disagree – as much as he is a fantastic player with the ball at his feet, until he learns some discipline he will remain a liability.  As for Didier Drogba, who once again let his manager, team-mates and fans down with an act of stupidity, and then had the temerity to patronise Mikel on his way off the pitch, I’d be inclined to out him sooner rather than later.  We’ve got Torres, Anelka, Sturridge, Lukaku and plenty of money to spend if needed; do we need a selfish, sulky guy like Drogba around the place?  I saw him walk past the Chelsea fans, many of whom were blindly applauding him, and straight down the tunnel in Moscow.  I saw him take a bit of the gloss off the Wigan game when we won the title by stropping off on the pitch because he couldn’t take a penalty.  This time I feel let down because I and many others paid £50 to watch him turn a difficult position into a near-impossible one with yet another act of petulance.  What must the likes of Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole, both of whom were immense throughout the second half of the game, make of it when they see Drogba dropping them in it like that?  He’s been a fantastic player for the club, but he’s also been a divisive figure too often – once too often in my opinion.

Of course, the John Terry race allegation has, possibly very cleverly and deliberately, been allowed to overshadow the other scandalous performances since Sunday night.  Foy, a former policeman and therefore clearly a man of impeccable integrity, has begun to drift into the background, no doubt to referee another game in his own inimitable way next weekend, whilst JT is yet again hauled over the coals by a salivating media.  However, if – and it’s a big if in my opinion – JT is proven to have racially abused Anton Ferdinand, he will deserve to have the book thrown at him.  That said, I would be amazed if the Chelsea captain, standing alongside Ashley Cole at the time he is alleged to have made the comment, would be stupid and ignorant enough to make racist comments as captain of a team, half of which is made up of black players.  It just doesn’t ring true.  And why berate Ferdinand for the colour of his skin when there are so many other words you can use: goofy, useless and chav being three that immediately spring to mind, and which also form a sentence that is simple to remember, yet perfectly summarise the man who made Titus Bramble the rock at the heart of Sunderland’s defence.

The latest development, that the police are now investigating following a complaint from a member of the public, seems worryingly like the start of a witch-hunt.  If the alleged victim or anybody else in the vicinity wants to make a complaint then it must be taken seriously.  If some hoop-clad twat, sitting alone in his Acton bedroom with just Sky Sports News and a box of tissues, not knowing if he’s more excited by Georgie Thompson or John Terry, decides to pipe up with a complaint, surely it’s pinch of salt time?

Ferdinand himself didn’t look too upset as he – from a safe distance – abused the Chelsea fans on his way off the pitch at the end of the game.  Believe me, he wouldn’t have done that back in the day.  It’s one thing being Billy Big Balls when you’ve got your mates with you and you’re trying to impress 16-year old Ilford girls in Faces Nightclub, but the likes of Anton aren’t quite so brave when the 16-year-old girls are replaced by grown men.  Likewise Shaun Derry, QPR’s supposed midfield hard man.  Derry, a self-styled tough guy more in keeping with Robbie Savage than Graeme Souness, gave me one of my highlights of Sunday, not that there were many.

There was a time when a hard man in football was just that.  These days, so-called hard men, like Derry, are nothing other than lippy irritants.  That’s where the similarity with Savage comes in.  I heard the blonde ponce referred to recently as ‘Strictly’s hard man’, which may be true when you consider his competition is a couple of camp panellists and Jason Donovan – although more than anything it tells you all you need to know about Audley Harrison’s credentials as a heavyweight boxer – but hard man, are you sure?  Savage spent his whole career trying to wind up opponents to get them sent off.  If he flew into a tackle, it was invariably with a player the size of your average primary school kid.  The one time he made the mistake of taking on somebody bigger than him, Dion Dublin, he ended up rolling around on the pitch, crying like a baby.  Real midfield hard men, guys like Souness, Roy Keane and Vinnie Jones, didn’t want their opponents sent off.  They wanted them on the pitch where they could deal with them.  With all due respect to Frank Lampard, he is not a Souness, Keane or Jones, but on Sunday when Derry realised he had gone too far with him and it was all getting a bit spicy, it was the Rangers man who couldn’t get off the pitch quick enough, falling to the ground and immediately gesturing that he needed to be substituted.  I laughed my nuts off.  Let’s see if Derry plays next weekend.  If he’s out injured I will accept I was wrong.  If he plays, we will all know the truth about QPR’s midfield ‘hard man’.

Another home player who didn’t cover himself in glory was Paddy Kenny, whose rolling around on the floor feigning injury after JT brushed past him went unpunished by the nice Mr Foy.  If that’s what constitutes a man where Kenny comes from, it’s no wonder his wife left him for one of his mates.  But what more would we expect from a team managed by Neil Warnock – or Colin W*nker to give him the moniker by which he is known throughout football?  Never has there been a more perfect anagram of a person’s name.  The fact that Colin saw fit to patronise Andre Villas-Boas after the game would have left a sour taste in the Portuguese’s mouth.  After all, AVB may be ‘young’, but he has achieved more in the game at 34 than Colin has at 57.  Perhaps Colin would have had more admiration for him if he had followed his own lead from his time at Sheffield United, and got the game abandoned by telling his players to feign injury and pick up more red cards so that the referee had no alternative but to call it off.

But the QPR players weren’t all bad – for every chav, coward, Colin and goalie who couldn’t satisfy his wife, there was a Fitz Hall or Luke Young, who spent most of the second half acting as peacemakers.  They kept their heads when nigh on everyone in a Chelsea shirt lost theirs, albeit understandably in the one-sided circumstances.  Even Joey Barton managed to rise above it all.  I’m not somebody who is taken in by his inflated status within the game ever since he starting quoting philosophy on his Twitter account – and as hard men go, this Joey is far more Deacon than Jones – but he took a fair bit of provocation on Sunday and kept his head.  Fair play to him.  He’s still a prat, though.

Sorry about that but I hate writing articles when my shirt is hanging out.

I, for one, have thoroughly enjoyed the furore caused by the ignorant comments, and subsequent departures from Sky, of Richard Keys and Andy Gray.  I personally believe the incident involving the female assistant referee has been blown out of all proportion, because I truly believe the two presenters considered that particular conversation nothing more than blokey banter, but I don’t care because I don’t much like them.  Gray has always struck me as a nasty piece of work, although not knowing the man personally I could be wide of the mark.  He was, however, an irritant and a whinger during his playing career, although he can at least point to the fact that he had a playing career in the first place, and was employed by Sky as a result of his knowledge of football garnered from playing the game at the very highest levels for a number of years.  TVAM presenter Keys can make no such boast.  This man was a lightweight TV presenter who got lucky… and got very smug as a result.  Neither of these dinosaurs will be missed.

Sadly, football commentary and punditry has suffered a huge drop in standards over the years.  The golden days of ITV football coverage were thirty or more years ago.  Commentators like Brian Moore and Hugh Johns have passed on to the other side, to be replaced by the self-satisfied warblings of the odious Clive Tyldesley; the dulcet tones of Bryon Butler on Radio Two superseded by the biased and controversial bile of Alan Green; Des Lynam, smooth as silk and silver tongued, replaced by the ever-so-smug Gary Lineker, whose butter-wouldn’t-melt reputation was, allegedly, built on a tissue of lies.  And then we have Talksport.

Talksport is tabloid broadcasting at its very worst.  The argumentative, confrontational tone adopted by their presenters isn’t just a disgrace, it is also cowardly.  Those same presenters who invite people to call in and respond to the topics of the day, will cut the caller off in their prime the second they make a comment the presenter can’t respond to or disagrees with.  They are then often mocked on air without recourse to a response.

Talksport’s presenters and so-called experts are a baffling mix of journalists, comedians and footballers, with the odd sexual deviant thrown in for good measure.  Jeremy Kyle, who has made a living out of ridiculing and humiliating chavs and illiterates on a TV programme that is surely watched only by people in velour tracksuits, sometimes has a show on there.  He is a West Ham fan, which is ironic as the majority of the guests on his TV show meet the exact criteria required to be a supporter of the Irons.  Darren Gough is also one of their so-called experts.  If you get a chance, tune in and listen to him giving his thoughts and opinions on the game we love.  It’s like a masterclass in Yorkshire special needs broadcasting.  But Talksport’s piece de resistance comes in the shape of the man who heads up their football coverage and leads their phone-ins: one Stanley Victor Collymore.

So what does it take to become an expert football broadcaster these days?  Well, if you’re the BBC you will probably get it predominantly right.  You might employ a former Scotland international and Liverpool captain who won everything worth winning domestically and in Europe, and talks a lot of sense about the game.  You might choose one of his former team-mates, who gained similar successes in his playing days and is likeable enough, albeit that his ‘jokes’ make you cringe on a regular basis.  You will probably give these two a supporting cast made up of international footballers who weren’t particularly likeable to many of us during their playing days, but have done it all and now talk fair-minded sense about it.  And if you’re Talksport?

If you’re Talksport you might employ the sort of man who, as a player, was sometimes as unpopular in his own dressing room as he was on the terraces of opposing teams.  A man who scored goals and had to celebrate alone.  A man who, despite his undoubted talent, won nothing of note during his career.  A man who last month caused a stir by his obnoxious behaviour in the Chelsea press box.  And you didn’t think I’d forgotten the good stuff, did you?  Talksport think it’s acceptable to employ a man who once attacked his then-girlfriend in a Paris bar, allegedly dragging her to the floor and aiming kicks at her head.  Talksport think it’s acceptable to employ a man who, by his own admission, went out and had sex with strangers in car parks while he was married.  Talksport think it’s acceptable to employ a man who played a significant part in Leicester City being sent home in disgrace from a trip to La Manga.  Talksport think it’s acceptable to employ a man who walked out on Spanish club Oviedo, leading to the club suing him for breach of contract.

Collymore’s behaviour when Villa scored their last minute equaliser at the Bridge was unprofessional and antagonistic.  It is something the current Chelsea board need to deal with in the same style that the old regime would have, by banning the oaf from setting foot in the press box again.  If he wants to behave like that, he should do so in the away end.  And if he wants to contest any ban Chelsea choose to dish out, perhaps the club could simply create a charter of behaviour for attendees of the Stamford Bridge press box, prohibiting access to self-confessed, woman-beating doggers.  I’m sure the female staff in there would feel much safer as a result.

Anyway, I’m off now.  The wife’s waiting for me on the bed.  I’m going up there to teach her the offside rule and then smash it.

Quite where the fascination with Hutchinson started is anyone’s guess.  Perhaps he scored the winning goal in one of my earliest matches attended, or maybe I had a penchant for long-throw experts.  It wasn’t because he is rumoured to have fathered a child with a well-known actress, who I can’t name here for legal reasons, because I only found out about this in recent years.  But whatever the reason, Hutch was my first hero. 

What Hutch did possess was a touch of naughtiness.  He, like many of his team-mates and peers, was a maverick; and as an impressionable kid with football on his mind, these were the sort of guys I was drawn to.

Perhaps there were clues in my musical taste.  A quick root through my record collection shows that the first seven-inch vinyl discs I bought were by Slade and Wizzard, and the first album to hit my shelf was Desolation Boulevard by Sweet, who for a time came close to matching Chelsea in my affections.  Sweet were my only boyhood heroes that didn’t ply their trade at Stamford Bridge, and one of the highlights for me of the memorable Sunderland v Leeds FA Cup Final of 1973, was seeing lead-singer Brian Connolly and guitarist Andy Scott camping it up in front of the ITV cameras during the pre-match festivities backstage at Wembley.  Sadly, both Connolly and Hutch have long-since departed this mortal coil, each falling victim to the dreaded booze.  As a non-drinker myself, it’s ironic that my first two heroes should succumb in this way. 

Anyway, I digress.  What was clear from an early stage was that I would always have a liking for people and players who failed to conform.  People and players with no respect for authority.  People and players who would cause my elders to raise an eyebrow or two on a regular basis.

For me, one of the great things about 1970s football was that it was littered with mavericks, and every big team seemed to have at least one player who fitted the bill.  Of course, with Hutchinson, Peter Osgood, Alan Hudson, Tommy Baldwin and a host of others amongst our number, Chelsea could boast the highest ratio of scallywags per squad, but in addition to our motley crew of bad boys, the two Manchester clubs, United and City, had George Best and Rodney Marsh respectively; and, incredibly, Second Division Fulham managed to pair them up for a while under the stewardship of Bobby Campbell during the mid-70s (this was the same Bobby Campbell who as Chelsea manager, sold Pat Nevin and Roy Wegerle, and replaced them with Graham Roberts and Peter Nicholas).  Arsenal had Charlie George and QPR Stan Bowles, who was despised by Chelsea fans, but was well-known to many of us Shepherds Bush schoolkids as a friendly, pleasant bloke who never refused to sign an autograph on the many occasions we bumped into him on his way out of the William Hill bookmakers on Uxbridge Road. 

Even some of the lesser-lights of top-flight football had their fair share of mavericks amongst their ranks.  Sheffield United could boast London-born Tony Currie in their midfield, and he was once famously snogged in the middle of the pitch by Leicester’s own cheeky chappie, Alan Birchenall, who had earned his maverick stripes during a spell at Chelsea earlier in the decade.  And then there was Frank Worthington…

Frank Worthington is, for my money, an absolute legend of the English game, and a player who would have been adored by the Stamford Bridge faithful had he played for Chelsea at any time in his career.  He made his name at Huddersfield before moving to Leicester City.  While at Filbert Street, Worthington caught the eye of none other than Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, who was on the brink of signing him until he failed a medical due to raised blood pressure.  The fact that Worthington claims his high blood pressure was caused by the previous night’s exertions only serves to increase his legendary status!

However, Worthington is probably best remembered by football supporters for a goal he scored in the colours of Bolton Wanderers early in the 1978/79 season, when he juggled the ball with his back to goal on the edge of the box, before flicking it over the head of an Ipswich Town defender and meeting it with an immaculate left-foot volley into the corner of the net. 

It was later that season, in December 1978, that I attended a match between QPR and Bolton at Loftus Road with a few of my school friends, after our school received a number of free tickets for the game.  Most of my friends were supporting QPR but I, naturally, was backing the visitors.  Happily, Wanderers won 3-1, with Worthington scoring twice, including a sublime strike from 20-yards after skipping past three defenders.  To make things even better, he came sliding over to the South Africa Road stand on his knees and gave a wave to the little guy sitting near the front of the stand, who was the only person in that part of the ground on his feet cheering.

Later that evening, I was making my way along Kensington High Street and as I ambled past the Royal Garden Hotel, there was Frank Worthington standing in the forecourt, resplendent in a green crushed velvet jacket and dickie-bow.  No doubt he was on his way to meet some glamour model or other.  I myself was on my way to a church disco for under-14s – which was hardly going to compare with the night Frank had ahead of him.  Nonetheless, I pulled two girls that night, and I’m giving Frank much of the credit, because some of the old Worthington magic clearly rubbed off on me that night.

Sadly, the likes of Frank Worthington don’t exist in the game anymore.  Perhaps the last of the real mavericks was Paul Gascoigne, and look at the state of him now.  From a Chelsea point of view, the last man to come close to being a maverick was Dennis Wise, and to an extent you could include the loathsome Vinnie Jones.  For real Chelsea mavericks, you have to cast your mind back further, to the likes of Mickey Thomas and Joey Jones, who had played at the top level in the 1970s and knew that life wasn’t for taking too seriously.

Football is big business in the 21^st century, and it is unlikely that we will ever see a return to the good old days of the 1970s mavericks.  The rewards for success are high, as are the demands of the clubs, and it is only right that the young men at the top of today’s game are expected to apply themselves to their trade and conduct themselves in the right way.  But if there is a young Frank Worthington out there anywhere, can you please sign for Chelsea?  We need someone like you to liven the place up a bit – and I need some of your magic to rub off on me again, because it just ain’t happening any more!

Kelvin Barker is the author of Celery! – Representing Chelsea in the 1980s, and co-author of Chelsea Here, Chelsea There

If the modern-day, family-friendly matchday experience has turned many of the old football stadia battlegrounds into altogether more welcoming venues, there can also be no doubt that the advent of all-seater stadia, and the clamour to attract the corporate dollar at the expense of the working man’s hard-earned wonga, has led to a more sanitised atmosphere for even the biggest of matches.  I’m sure I wasn’t the only person to be disappointed by the atmosphere at both of Chelsea’s cup final appearances at the new Wembley.

Sitting inside Wembley at the 2007 FA Cup Final triumph and the following season’s Carling Cup catastrophe, surrounded by fans who, despite the cajoling of a vocal minority, patently had no desire to exert themselves in support of the team, it all seemed a far cry from the Chelsea I had grown up with, when Stamford Bridge on matchday was often a seething cauldron of passion and adrenaline.  I recalled a day in 1984, when Boy George and Culture Club filmed a clip for the video of The Medal Song on the Stamford Bridge pitch, prior to a match with Watford.  The chorus sang: Through my anger and my joy, my tears and pain/Life will never be the same as it was again.  I never thought I would say it, but as that memory returned to me, for a brief moment it seemed that Mr O’Dowd was more than just a cross-dressing old queen; it felt like he was a prophet!

Sadly, old curmudgeons like me have had to come to terms with the fact that ‘life will never be the same as it was again’.  Only time will tell if the Stamford Bridge atmosphere will ever return to its passionate heydays of yesteryear, but one facet of the Chelsea support that is probably gone forever is the magnificent travelling support to away matches.

I first witnessed the incredible Chelsea away support for myself in March 1975, when I was a mere nine years old.  Not surprisingly for a kid living in Shepherds Bush, my first away match was just down the road at QPR, accompanied by my dad and my brother.  By this stage, I was into my fifth year of attending home matches, and I had by now got my bearings as to where the home and away fans stood within Stamford Bridge – so I was absolutely bewildered to see that both terraces within Loftus Road were packed with Chelsea supporters.  Better still, both the Ellerslie and South Africa Road stands were highly populated with visiting supporters too, and of the 25,000 spectators present that night, well over 15,000 were cheering on the mighty Blues.

Three years on from my away match initiation, I returned to QPR with just my brother for company.  The match was an all-ticket affair, and Chelsea’s allocation was sold out almost immediately.  My brother and I met up after school and bought a pair of tickets for the home end from the Loftus Road box office, and prayed that we wouldn’t be the only Chelsea fans to do so.  However, on the day of the game, my brother had a brainwave: why don’t we go to the away end, show our tickets and explain that we are Chelsea supporters?  Now, why didn’t I think of that?  This we duly did, and the man at the turnstile smiled and let us in.  Mind you, we needn’t have worried – yet again, the Loft was heaving with Chelsea supporters, and there was barely a home fan in sight.

My first away trip outside of London came at the age of 15, when Chelsea faced Southampton in the third round of the FA Cup in January 1981.  As expected, thousands of Blues supporters made the trip to the South Coast to see if Geoff Hurst’s young side – riding high in Division Two but having failed to find the net in any of their previous five games – would prove a match for a home side featuring the likes of Kevin Keegan, Mick Channon and Charlie George.  The answer was no: Chelsea played better than of late, but the experienced Saints ran out 3-1 winners.  However, there were two battles taking place that day, and the other one was fought out between some of the Chelsea boys and the local police force.  There had already been some large-scale aggro prior to kick-off, and this was exacerbated just before half-time when, with the Saints ahead by a goal to nil, Keegan doubled the lead and chose to celebrate with a gesture to the visiting fans.  As the half-time whistle blew, a number of Chelsea supporters were attempting to scale the fences and get on the pitch to have a quiet word with the England captain; and when a local bobby foolishly tried to single-handedly apprehend one of the miscreants, he was attacked and forced to flee from the terrace.     

Throughout that early-80s period of Division Two mediocrity, the only thing Chelsea really had to be proud of was the spectacular number of travelling fans that would make their way to places such as Wrexham, Barnsley and Oldham.  Famously, there were 3,000 Blues fans present on the day we were humbled 6-0 at Rotherham in October 1981, and later that season, after Chelsea supporters had been banned by the FA from attending all away matches after a spate of incidents, so many turned up at Watford that not only did the police insist that they were allowed into Vicarage Road in order to stop them roaming around outside the stadium, but the FA were forced into  a humiliating climbdown, and  the ban was lifted after just two matches.  When the Blues travelled to Bolton for the most important game in their history – the 1982/83 relegation decider which, had they lost, might have seen the club go out of business – most observers estimated that of the 8,600 present, some 5,000 had travelled up from London.  It was, therefore, inevitable that if the good times returned, the numbers travelling to away matches would spiral out of control.

When the fixtures computer threw up a Brighton v Chelsea clash on the Saturday of the 1983 August bank holiday, it was like a gift from the gods to the Blues fans.  Buoyed by an opening day thrashing of Derby County, which gave an indication that the club’s fortunes were about to turn favourably, so many supporters made the short journey to the coast that by Friday evening, the pubs and clubs of Brighton were heaving with Chelsea.  Inevitably, there were more outbursts of trouble throughout the night, with some supporters forced by the police to remain in a subway until the following morning.

Brighton, just down from a spell in Division One, and having not played the Blues for a number of seasons, were woefully unprepared for the invasion that took place, and they naively left just one turnstile open to cater for the visiting  supporters.  Eventually, after another outbreak of trouble amongst a group of supporters who had remained unmoved after queuing for over an hour, the home club rushed open more turnstiles to allow the 15,000 Chelsea supporters present to cram into their Goldstone Ground stadium. 

The 1983/84 season saw Chelsea’s travelling support reach new heights.  Sheffield Wednesday, Huddersfield, Leeds, Derby, Cardiff and Newcastle all saw their stadiums invaded by upwards of 5,000 Blues fans, while Cambridge United wisely allocated half of their Abbey Stadium to Chelsea supporters when the buoyant Blues – top of the table and heading for promotion – travelled there in February.  Not surprisingly, the London clubs fared no better: 15,000 Chelsea saw Fulham beaten 5-3 in the pouring rain at Craven Cottage; and the same number watched their side clinch a 1-0 victory at Crystal Palace on Easter Saturday.  As the season reached an exciting conclusion, 8,000 Blues fans descended on Portsmouth in the hope of seeing promotion confirmed at Fratton Park, and the same number turned up at Maine Road for a Friday night in Moss Side!  If any match bears testimony to the fanatical nature of Chelsea’s support at the time, it is this one, because not only had promotion by now been secured, but the game was also transmitted live on BBC1.  The final act of magnificence on the part of the Blues supporters in season 1983/84 came on the last day of the season at Grimsby, when an estimated 10,000 travelled to Cleethorpes to witness Chelsea clinch the Division Two championship.

If an August bank holiday trip to Brighton was manna from heaven in 1983, a visit to Highbury exactly a year later for the Blues’ first game back in the top flight after an absence of five years was beyond belief… and brings me back to my first paragraph.  The police ordered an 11.30am kick-off, understandably fearful of an afternoon of drink-fuelled carnage in the sun if the game were to start later.  In the event, the occasion passed off peacefully.  Well, not exactly peacefully, because never has a goal been so wildly celebrated as Kerry Dixon’s equaliser in front of the Clock End that earned Chelsea a well-deserved point at the home of one of their main rivals.  Twenty thousand Chelsea were in the Highbury library that day – a remarkable turnout, surely never bettered by any other club.  Nobody present will ever forget it.

As Chelsea made a solid return to Division One, the mighty travelling support continued unabated.  Enormous numbers turned out for early season journeys to Manchester United and Aston Villa, which saw the Stretford and Holte ends respectively receive a visit from their London counterparts; and an impressive 6,000 made their way to Hillsborough at less than 48 hours’ notice to witness the memorable 4-4 Milk Cup draw in February 1985.

Chelsea’s impressive travelling support endured throughout the remainder of the 1980s, although it perhaps never quite hit the heights of 1983/84 and 1984/85 again.  Sadly, the advent of the Premier League at the beginning of the following decade brought an end to the fun, but it really was good while it lasted.  I know for a fact that many of the supporters who would squeeze onto the old Chelsea Specials on a Saturday morning, in anticipation of another long journey to some Godforsaken northern outpost, are still around, and they will hold fond memories of what was a very special time to be a Chelsea fan.  Life will never be the same as it was again – what a pity.   

Kelvin Barker is the author of Celery! – Representing Chelsea in the 1980s, and co-author of Chelsea Here, Chelsea There

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… ‘.

With the Blues plunging headfirst towards their second relegation of the Seventies, having begun the decade in cup-winning style both domestically and in Europe, chairman Brian Mears took the decision to remove struggling manager Ken Shellito just before Christmas 1978, and replace him with former Tottenham and Northern Ireland captain Danny Blanchflower. Depending on your viewpoint, it was an appointment based on little more than a romantic notion, which ultimately backfired, or it was an appointment steeped in incompetence and stupidity. Shellito was clearly not experienced enough to cope with the rigours of managing a big club in demise; a task that required keeping Chelsea out of the relegation zone with a squad of primarily youthful, inexperienced and unproven boys, whilst selling some of the few crown jewels available to him in order to service the debt which had hung over the entire club since the ill-fated development of the East Stand, earlier in the decade. However, if Shellito didn’t have the required skills and experience to cope with the lofty demands of the job, neither did the man brought in to replace him.

With the exception of a brief spell as part-time manager of Northern Ireland, Danny Blanchflower’s only involvement in football since retiring as a top level player in 1964 had been as a journalist, writing about the game he had graced for 15 years. Inevitably, the Irishman’s tenure was no more successful than that of his predecessor. But were he still with us, Blanchflower could at least point to the fact that he was responsible for signing one of the biggest entertainers the Chelsea supporters have had the opportunity to witness in the history of the club. The original Big Pete between the Stamford Bridge sticks: Petar Borota.

Blanchflower signed the burly Yugoslav with the face of a Bond villain in March 1979, after Peter Bonetti announced that he would be hanging up his well-worn gloves at the end of the season. The cash-strapped Blues cobbled together £70,000 to procure Borota’s services from Partizan Belgrade, and immediately threw him in at the deep end, with a debut at home to mighty Liverpool.

The matchday programme for the Liverpool clash made great play of the fact that Bonetti’s exuberant replacement shared the same initials as his illustrious predecessor; but realistically, that was where the similarity ended. For all his famed cat-like agility, Bonetti was an understated character who prided himself on his reliability. By contrast, Borota was an eccentric personality, who felt it was his duty to entertain the Chelsea supporters for the time that he was out on the pitch. For a set of supporters deprived of real entertainment for too long, he was like a gift from the Gods – and a new cult hero was born.

Borota made an auspicious start to his Chelsea career, keeping a clean sheet in a 0-0 draw with the champions-elect; but the next five games all ended in defeat, culminating in a 6-0 thrashing by Nottingham Forest.

After relegation was confirmed, Borota played the remainder of his Chelsea career in the Second Division. It was a bleak period for the club, with occasional glimpses of promise regularly being overshadowed by poor displays and embarrassing defeats.

Geoff Hurst replaced Blanchflower in September 1979, and the former England striker was clearly impressed by his new goalkeeper. For a man who had played alongside Gordon Banks at both club and country level, it must have been strange for Hurst to witness his goalkeeper rushing forty yards off his goal-line to intercept a pass, or back-heeling the ball to Micky Droy when he could sense that a touch of boredom was setting in amongst the Stamford Bridge faithful.

But not only did Hurst rate Borota, in the summer of 1980 – after Chelsea had just failed on goal difference to clinch promotion back to the top-flight – he made him his captain. By now a firm crowd favourite, Borota was genuinely touched when he recalled the moment he received the news: ‘When Geoff Hurst say to me about being made captain, I tell him “do I hear right – me, captain of Chelsea Football Club?” I don’t believe it, but I am so happy and proud to accept. I love this club, and my feelings for Chelsea are so strong that some days this summer I come to Stamford Bridge to walk alone on the pitch, look at the grass and up at the big stands, and dream a little of great days ahead.”

Despite an excellent start to the new season, when Chelsea stormed to the top of the table under Borota’s captaincy, they fell away embarrassingly, embarking on a run in which they scored in just three of their final 22 league games. Throughout this period, there was little else to keep the Chelsea fans entertained and amused other than the sight of their goalkeeper’s eccentric displays.

When things were going well, in particular during a 6-0 thrashing of Newcastle United in November, Borota was the picture of joy, celebrating wildly on the pitch as the goals flew past a bemused United keeper; and when things began to implode, he took it upon himself to try to drag the club out of the mire. Against Cardiff City, with the Bluebirds clinging on to a one-nil lead, Borota raced forward to join the Chelsea attack for a corner at the North Stand end of Stamford Bridge, just failing to connect with Clive Walker’s in-swinging set-piece – but when he again raced out of his goal to launch an attack against Watford, the inevitable finally happened as he was dispossessed by the Hornets’ Malcolm Poskett, who rolled the ball gently into an empty net, consigning the Blues to yet another defeat.

The howler against Watford aside, 1980/81 was a far better campaign for Petar Borota than it was for the club as a whole, as he broke Peter Bonetti’s club record of 16 clean sheets in a season. But perhaps the most notable mark of the esteem in which the affable man in the Chelsea number one shirt was now held by the Blues’ supporters, came in an FA Cup match at Southampton in January, when he stepped in to quell a mini-riot that was breaking out amongst the travelling fans behind his goal.

Borota’s Chelsea career came to an abrupt end early in the 1981/82 season, after a 6-0 defeat at Rotherham. It was an ignominious goalkeeping performance within an infamous team display, but Borota’s part in it can perhaps be explained by the comments of our former midfielder, Dale Jasper, in Chelsea Here, Chelsea There: ‘I remember getting my mates tickets for Rotherham years ago, when we lost 6-0. I think I was probably in the reserves then but I got a couple of the lads to leave them tickets, about six of them. I remember they had a nightmare getting there and a nightmare getting home. This was before my time even, I think I might have just broken into the reserves, and they used to give you a nip of scotch in your cup of tea before the game when it was cold. Anyway, before the game someone has said “Where’s Petar Borota?” and they’re looking for him everywhere; he’s in the shower room and he’s finished the bottle. That’s a true story. I saw the goals in the news that night and I thought ‘What are you doing?’ I knew he was mad-cap, the fella, but I thought ‘What is he doing with them crosses?’ I’d never seen anything like it! When I asked the players in training on the Monday, they said he was paralytic drunk.’

Petar Borota was replaced soon after by young Steve Francis, before moving to Brentford on a free-transfer the following summer. However, his Griffin Park career had barely begun when Benfica came knocking, and the eccentric Yugoslav moved to Portugal without having made a single appearance for the Bees. Happily, he returned to London soon after, as a spectator in the East Stand on the day that promotion back to the top-flight was sealed in April 1984. As the fans on the pitch celebrated a crushing 5-0 victory over rivals Leeds United, Borota was able to receive one final cheer from the fans who had taken him to their hearts just a few years earlier.

A truly remarkable man, Petar was a talented abstract artist, who had his work displayed in London in 1980. In later years, he became embroiled in an art forgery scam which saw him serve a short spell in prison, but it is as an agile and talented goalkeeper, an eccentric entertainer, and a popular and ever-smiling friend of every Chelsea fan who endured the early-80s that he should be remembered.

Petar Borota died last Friday in Italy, aged just 57. Rest in peace, the (highly) original Big Pete – we’ll never see your like again.

For the younger Chelsea fan, whose memory does not stretch back to the Seventies and Eighties, this must surely be the seminal domestic cup clash between the two sides.

It was Ruud Gullit’s first season in charge and, backed by some big money signings, the manager was making an impressive fist of his first managerial role. One thing hadn’t changed, though, and that was that Liverpool went into the game as favourites, as Roy Evans’ mob sat at the top of the Division One table as we approached the end of January. Of course, they didn’t win the title.

Somewhat controversially, Gullit left Mark Hughes on the bench, preferring to start the out-of-form Gianluca Vialli alongside Gianfranco Zola in attack. Evans, for his part, was happy to put faith in an attacking policy that saw Stan Collymore, Robbie Fowler and Steve McManaman all given licence to rip into a Chelsea defence that appeared to be on the brink of collapse come half-time. Goals from the loathsome Collymore and the, er, loathsome Fowler gave Liverpool a two-goal lead at the interval – a lead that could easily have been doubled but for the profligacy of MacManaman, who should have put the game out of Chelsea’s reach before he half-time whistle had even blown. Nevertheless, his best mate’s wastefulness did not deter Fowler from gesturing a 2-0 scoreline with his fingers to Frank Lebeouf as the players made their way off the pitch for a slice of orange and a wee-wee. Ho hum, Robbie. What goes around, comes around.

He may have had little option really, but Gullit’s masterstroke was to throw Hughes into the action for the second-half, replacing Scott Minto as the Chelsea manager gambled on going with three at the back for the rest of the game. What transpired was one of the most memorable, inspirational and downright enjoyable 45 minutes of recent history. One half of football that had Stamford Bridge rocking

Naturally, it was Hughes who got the comeback underway, firing a low shot past David James from the edge of the box; and equally inevitably, it was the former Manchester United striker whose determined challenge and quick lay-off set the ball up for a wondrous left-foot strike from Zola, which swerved out of the reach of a full-stretch James and into the top corner of the net.

One player who had only shown glimpses thus far in his Chelsea career of his renowned talent was Gianluca Vialli, who had fallen from grace somewhat after the signing of Zola, and the little Sardinian’s subsequent pairing with Hughes, which had paid off handsomely. Rumours had already begun to circulate of Vialli’s frustration with Gullit, but his first-half performance would have done little to persuade the Dutchman that he had erred when leaving the Italian legend out previously. One opportunity spurned by Vialli in the first-half had been particularly wasteful, but as Hughes and Zola combined to put Chelsea back into the game, Vialli suddenly emerged from the shadows to become the hero of the Bridge with two goals which shattered Liverpool, and had the Stamford Bridge faithful believing that a first major cup win in 26 years was now a realistic possibility.

Vialli’s first goal came courtesy of a calm finish after Dan Petrescu had crafted an opening with a neat pass, and his second was a firm header from a Zola free-kick. In the aftermath of Vialli’s second goal, Liverpool’s Mark Wright stood in apparent shock, his face a picture of confusion, while the TV cameras homed in on a distraught teenage Liverpool fan, who was weeping openly (and hilariously) as, once again, his team’s cup dreams were shattered at Stamford Bridge. And on the subject of cry babies, let’s go back to the incident at half-time, when Robbie Fowler signalled with his fingers to Frank Lebeouf that his side were leading 2-0. Just before the final whistle blew, Petrescu was upended by Collymore, earning a free-kick for the Blues. Collymore, who had obviously had a dog of a day, couldn’t resist having a little chip at Petrescu, who responded by showing the Liverpool mentalist four fingers on one hand and two on the other – and who should suddenly appear and start whingeing and bleating at our Romanian superstar for his act of petulance? Yes, that’s right: Robbie Fowler. Graeme Le Saux, I salute you.

Of course, many supporters will consider that last season’s Champions League semi-final win over the Scousers was the best and most satisfying of them all, but that is too recent to be included in a Back in the Day piece. It did, however, give us some of the most iconic images of the 2007/08 season: John Arne Riise heading powerfully and embarrassingly past Pepe Reina in front of the Kop; Frank Lampard bravely converting a penalty before collapsing in tears following the recent death of his mother; and Didier Drogba mocking Rafael Benitez after his two goals sent Chelsea through to the Moscow final, Benitez having earlier criticised the Ivorian for his diving exploits, whilst turning a blind eye when Torres and Gerrard are equally guilty of such antics.

We’ve come a long way since our struggling Division One team and our mid-table Division Two side earned unexpected cup victories over Liverpool. This time we go into the match at Stamford Bridge as favourites. Come on you Blues – it’s time to knock them out of the cup (again). We’ve got a ‘istoree of this sort of thing, you know.

Kelvin is the author of Celery! Representing Chelsea in the 1980s

The 1982 game didn’t have the goals and goalmouth drama of other cup clashes between the sides, but it was certainly the biggest giant-killing of the lot. Once again, Liverpool arrived as European champions, and this time they were facing a mid-table Division Two side who were, let’s be honest, basically crap. This Chelsea side had been beaten 6-0 less than four months earlier by Rotherham, who would also win 4-1 at the Bridge later that season. This Chelsea side had been knocked out of the other domestic cup competition, the League Cup, by Wigan Athletic of Division Four. This Chelsea side was one year away from finishing in the lowest position of any Chelsea side ever.

Although the likes of Phil Neal, Alan Hansen and Kenny Dalglish remained from the Liverpool side humbled by Clive Walker and Co four years earlier, they had now been supplemented by players of the quality of Graeme Souness, Mark Lawrenson and Ian Rush. Chelsea could boast no such strength in depth, with Chris Hutchings, Micky Nutton and Peter Rhoades-Brown failing to strike fear into the hearts of the Reds players when Bob Paisley gave his team-talk.

Peter Rhoades-Brown – now, there was a funny one. He made his debut while he was still only 17, in Chelsea’s last game of the 1970s – a 2-0 defeat at Wrexham – but really caught the eye for the first time in the early weeks of the 1980/81 campaign, when he and fellow wide-man Phil Driver briefly combined to provide a string of opportunities which were snaffled up by target-man Colin Lee, whose 14 goals in as many games helped propel Chelsea to the top of the Division Two table in the autumn of 1980. Sadly, though, in terms of consistency that was as good as it got for the speedy winger from Hampton. For the remainder of his Chelsea career he would continually flatter to deceive, often cruising past his marker only to deliver a cross onto the head of the burly skinhead sitting in Row X. Thankfully, he was wearing Billy Dane’s boots on the day that Liverpool came to town.

The match itself was late kicking off, with the teams running out at five to three only to immediately retreat as a game of hooligan tennis was being played out on the North Stand terrace, with Chelsea fans lobbing sticks, stones and coins at their Liverpool counterparts, and the Reds fans eagerly returning the sticks and stones from whence they came. The funniest sight, though, was that of the ball boys, who instead of retreating back into the players’ tunnel with the teams, stood huddled on the halfway line watching the violent scenes unfold, until a club steward strolled onto the pitch and in no uncertain terms reminded them where they were supposed to be. Their eager sprint back towards the East Stand was reminiscent of a hotly-contested school sports day race.

Chelsea had needed two games with Hull City and a further three with Wrexham simply to reach this stage of the competition, but they had no such problems dispatching the mighty Liverpool. The deadlock was broken early on by Rhoades-Brown, whose boots guided him to dispossess McDermott in midfield, and then race onto Colin Lee’s well-weighted pass before firing low past Bruce Grobbelaar in the Liverpool goal. Billy’s Boots then made Rhoades-Brown do some strange screamy, shouty, jumpy, arm-thrashing kind of celebration, the likes of which I hope we never see again.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the afternoon was how well-deserved the victory was. Liverpool conjured few chances, and those they did manage were dealt with comfortably by 17-year-old Steve Francis in the Chelsea goal. Micky Droy and Micky Nutton kept Dalglish and Rush relatively quiet, while Colin Pates nullified the threat of Souness with a midfield performance of incredible maturity. However, the man of the match was Colin Lee, who battered Lawrenson and Hansen into submission, before earning his reward in the closing stages, when his two-yard toe-poke ensured it would be Chelsea that progressed into the quarter-finals. Conveniently, I have forgotten who we lost to in the last eight.

Kelvin is the author of Celery! Representing Chelsea in the 1980s

Part three (FA Cup Round 4 – 26 January 1997 – Chelsea 4 Liverpool 2) coming soon

It hasn’t always been the case this season, but last night I went to bed with a smug, self-satisfied grin on my face – which doesn’t always happen when you’ve been married as long as I have – and this morning I woke up wallowing in the afterglow of a win that would have ripped through the heart of vile, Chelsea-hating, professional Scousers like John ‘are they your eyebrows or did you just walk through a hedge?’ Aldridge and Steve ‘run for your life, Vinnie’s coming’ McMahon.

Of course, the job isn’t complete yet and we still have to finish the tie off in the second leg, but if we are successful in defending our lead and sending Rafa’s whingers scuttling out of the Champions League one round earlier than we did last year, it will be the latest in a long(ish) line of famous cup victories over Liverpool. No ‘istoree? As every Scouser’s number one role model, Jim Royle, might say: “No ‘istoree, my arse.”

FA Cup Round 3 – 7 January 1978 – Chelsea 4 Liverpool 2

Liverpool arrived at Stamford Bridge as reigning champions of both England and Europe, and would successfully defend their European crown by beating FC Bruges at Wembley later that season. Chelsea’s campaign, their first back in the top-flight after two years in the Second Division, was never going to be destined to end with such glories, but for a side hovering just above the relegation zone, this was as good as it got.

The visitors were at full-strength as they took to the field on a cold winter’s afternoon, their team littered with top internationals such as Kenny Dalglish, Emlyn Hughes and Ray Clemence. Chelsea, on the other hand, were without the influential Ray Wilkins, Kenny Swain and Micky Droy, so fielded a team littered with the likes of Graham Wilkins, John Sparrow and Bill Garner.

Playing on the left wing for the Blues that day was 20-year-old Clive Walker, who had introduced himself to the Chelsea faithful in style earlier that season with an excellent brace in a 3-1 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers at Moulineux. Against Liverpool, he introduced himself to the nation.

Liverpool’s legendary manager, Bob Paisley, had opted to switch his full-backs for the Stamford Bridge clash, asking England right-back Phil Neal to play on the left and deploying his tough-tackling regular left-back, Joey Jones, on the right in an attempt to nullify the threat of Walker. Now, Joey is a friend of mine, a guy I love dearly and probably my favourite Chelsea player ever, but it has to be said that Walker smashed the granny out of him that day! And didn’t we all love it, because at the time, Joey was known simply as ‘that dirty Welsh bastard, Jones’.

It was Walker who opened the scoring when his quick throw-in was touched back to him by Garner, before the pacy winger streaked past Jones and sent a swerving shot flashing beyond the reach of Clemence and into the top corner of the England custodian’s net.

A goal to the good at half-time, manager Ken Shellito – enjoying what would prove to be comfortably the highlight of his short managerial tenure – replaced the ageing Charlie Cooke with the somewhat more youthful Steve Finnieston, and it was ‘Super Jock’ who doubled Chelsea’s lead with a low shot from twelve yards soon after the break.

Within minutes of Finnieston’s strike, Ian Britton attempted to race past Neal on Chelsea’s right wing, only for the Liverpool man to relieve the little Scot of possession. However, to the astonishment of 45,000 punters squeezed into a heaving Stamford Bridge, Neal then played a poor pass back towards his own goal which Tommy Langley raced on to and lifted expertly over Clemence to give lowly Chelsea an astonishing 3-0 lead over their much-vaunted visitors.

David Johnson’s close-range strike caused a few flutters among the Chelsea faithful, but any doubts about the outcome were laid to rest when Garner set up Walker for his second of the game. Walker’s jubilation was in stark contrast to the frustration felt by Joey Jones, who was so irritated after being substituted that as he pulled on his track-suit top, his fist inadvertently flew through the sleeve and landed in Bob Paisley’s face. Joey never played for Liverpool again.

A late second for the Reds could not detract from a magnificent victory for Shellito’s young side, and the only sour note of the afternoon came from the behaviour of Liverpool captain Emlyn Hughes, who despicably tried to get Garner sent-off by feigning that he had been head-butted, after the Chelsea man squared up to the irritating squeaker in the Liverpool penalty area. The referee ignored Hughes’ histrionics, as did his team-mates, amongst whom he was almost universally despised. In fact, he was probably more unpopular in the Anfield changing room than any other, and that really is saying something.

Kelvin is the author of Celery! Representing Chelsea in the 1980s

Part two (FA Cup Round 5 – 13 February 1982 – Chelsea 2 Liverpool 0) coming soon