The agony and the ecstasy of being a fan of Chelsea FC

Date Published: 08-Nov-2012

Chelsea FC are Champions of Europe, FA Cup Winners, riding high in the league and playing beautiful creative attacking football. Everyone’s talking about Chelsea. Trouble is, nobody’s talking about football.

Being a True Blue Chelsea fan can drive a man crazy. Cancel that – you have to be crazy to be a Chelsea fan. Blimey, how embarrassing. It’s taken the 43 years since Dad first took me to watch Chelsea play to realise that.

Mind you, it explains a lot, like why it is that wherever I’ve lived in the world I’ve been drawn to those who subsequently turn out to be Chelsea fans. Be it in west Connemara or a bar in San Francisco, I’ve made friends who suddenly become top notch types, as they reveal their Blue hearts.

Nutters, every one of them, but as a nutter myself, I’m biased, and digressing. I’m steering clear of illustrating the pain of being a Chelsea fan. There have been moments of intense pleasure and pride alongside times when I just want to curl up and die of embarrassment. Maybe there’s a psychological reason why Blue is the colour? Even Chelsea’s good times test me to the limit.

When we made it to Wember-lee for the FA Cup Final in 1970, Chelsea had a team of flashy wide boys, whose exciting skills on the pitch were unburdened by any moral or intellectual substance. As excited as a 10 year-old can be, I went to the game with my Dad and watched the longest-ever Cup Final, which ended in a draw, followed by a replay.

For your young scribbler this was a disaster. All I’d wanted to do was to see Ron ‘Chopper’ Harris lift the cup for Chelsea, or failing that at least be at Wembley when somebody lifted the bloody cup, but no. Dad went to the replay up in Manchester four days later, but I wasn’t allowed to go. It was a school night.

Ouch.

The following year, when Chelsea beat the mighty Real Madrid to win the European Cup Winners Cup, my mum decided I should spend Chelsea’s night of glory stuck on a train to Devon to visit Aunty Sandy. Frantically trying and failing to find commentary of the game on a tiny transistor radio I clasped to my ear, I yet again missed the chance to experience Chelsea winning a trophy.

Later that year Dad and I went to Wember-lee again, where we watched Stoke City defeat Chelsea in the League Cup Final. At last I saw a captain lift a cup. Shame that his shirt had red and white stripes. I think I may have cried a bit, but consoled myself that it was only the League Cup and not the FA Cup, which then carried enormous cachet.

For the next 30 years Chelsea drifted around footballing backwaters, making exciting yet infrequent excursions out to win cups and play sexy football. Mixing anguish with triumph, they tortured us fans by confirming they could win when they could be bothered.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.