Has the time come for punk football to hit the world?

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

There were so many different reasons for a nine-year-old boy to feel excited that day. I was going to see Chelsea play for the first time in my life. I was going to see Chelsea with my Dad. I was being taken to the football by the person who gave me the love of football in the first place.

Every child that was first taken to see their team play by a parent will know what that experience means.

In the years to come, before any concept of bonding existed, my father and I did just that over our love of the Chelsea.

We couldn’t unite over our love of watching the Chelsea play, because in those days our team only turned in a performance when their chakras were aligned with seven pints of Watney’s Red Barrel and a Ruby Murray.

Plenty to feel excited about on a unique day in that nine year-old’s life, yet only one shock gasp of pure pleasure and a moment of abject embarrassment have stayed forever lodged in my head, since that home game against Sunderland in 1969.

My unexpected thrill came before the game, as my short legs climbed the last of a mountain of steps, and we emerged at the top of the West Stand.

I hadn’t given the ground a moment’s thought, so it was wonderful to find myself involuntarily stopping in my tracks, looking out over the great expanse of deep green grass, sharply divided by perfectly pristine white lines, so unlike anything I’d ever seen in the muddy mires of the park or at school.

As my chin dropped in thrall, my eyes wandered around Stamford Bridge, looking vast with its greyhound track between the pitch and the crowd. The sound of the songs from the Shed transfixed my senses.

I couldn’t take my eyes off those crammed masses on Chelsea’s hallowed terrace, where the scarves swayed above the fans’ heads in a sea of blue.

Instantly, part of me wanted to be down there, in the midst of the throng, but more, I was just loving being there with my dad.

That’s why, when the game finished 1-1, it was beyond painful to ask him when the replay would be.

“There’s no replay. It’s a league game.” he explained calmly, as inside my pre-teen head my voice roared “I knew that! Why did I ask such a stupid question? Now he’ll think I don’t know anything about football! Why did I ask that?”

In the ’70s and ’80s, football was very far from perfect. Fascists sold National Front newspapers outside the grounds; and when as a 17-year-old I went to stand in the Shed, I spent more time trying to stay away from fights than I did watching football.

Mind you, to that teenager, little compared to the tribal ecstasy of a mass of manhood, moving as one in outrageous jubilation, when we scored a goal.

To read Charlie’s column in full, please see this week’s Galway City Tribune.