CALL OUT THE INSTIGATORS ….

… COS THERES SOMETHING IN THE AIR …

AND I RECKIE IT AINT A BAD THING !!!

Not hard to recognise that there’s a bit of an ‘atmosphere’ down at the bridge at the mo-mo – the natives are restless… Certain Chelsea fans are not happy and in danger of throwing their dummies and their blue plastic flags right out of nice Mr Abramovich’s not austere black but expensive perambulator rescued from the ‘heap of glasnost’…. Nor the patched and mended Maclaren double-buggie still in 80’s blue-stripes, laden with errors and debt and still carrying that music-hall image of the Pensioners that mad emperor Bates tried to shift by draconian methods and his own cultural revolution (which involved trying to eradicate most of Chelsea’s pre-Bates history) …. No the ‘kids’, the fans that is, the ones Piers Morgan slates as ungrateful little b’tards, are jumping up and down in that nice, very expensive shiny metallic blue with gold edging limo that the new emperor – Roman Abramovich drove into Stamford Bridges’ plush underground car park now nearly ten years ago and from where the sounds of quarrying and clanging have been heard ever since as the new owner has sought to make changes to everything and leave his own indelible mark on the club he bought for a song but has since cost him much more than a small fortune.

Being a sports fan is an irrational pursuit in many ways. There is very rarely any financial return to be had, in fact it is invariably a constant drain on one’s resources. The cost of tickets, travel to the game, memorabilia etc and that apart from the investment of time, emotional stress etc…. The pleasure gained from those notable and special days when you actually win that big and important game is nearly always out-weighed by the sense of depression that can overcome you when you see your team lose and that goes for fans of Real Madrid, Man U and certainly Chelsea despite picking up more trophies than any other PL team during Mr Abramovich’s reign…. That is as I say, if one was being rational but then a fan is a ‘fanatic’ after all and irrational and Roman A, it seems to me, is no more or less than a fan-atic himself the way he throws his money away over us. His allegiance is  just on a far, far, far bigger scale.

For nearly ten years the Chelsea fanatics have sat in their seats applauding and clapping and waving their flags as the trophies, the players and the managers have rolled in and out of Stamford Bridge. The Chelsea faithful have paid and ‘put up’ because ‘at the end of the day Simon, winning is what it’s all about’ and we’ve certainly done more than our fair share of that … They’ve sat next to long rows of Japanese tourists taking photos of themselves ‘@Chelskea’ and listened to disinterested corporate guests arranging business breakfasts during the warm-up who then seem uncomfortable when you cheer or shout and then return ten minutes into the 2nd half with their mobiles to their ears … The fanatics at the Bridge have not said a word … they’ve put-up, paid-up and shut-up … that, however was before the revolution!

But now there is certainly something in the air … I think they used to call it the 10 year itch … that time in a marriage when you might say the honeymoon is truly over and individuals begin to say – ‘Hold on doesn’t my ‘I’ have a say in things anymore. Maybe Roman didn’t account for that when he drew a line in the sand and said ‘over 30 you cannot go – Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, Ashley Cole and maybe JT’. Or to Euro-winner, Chelsea favourite or not, Robbie DiMatteo – ‘You’re not up to snuff, you are the weakest link, you can go.’

So the ‘blue flag brigade’ are clapping in the sixteenth minute, singing ‘One Di Matteo’ and carrying ‘Hate Rafa’ posters while they boo the manager and cheer obsessively every time Super Frank gets the ball. From where I’m standing most of this is pretty much counter productive to the ‘team’ and football is after all a ‘team’ game, on and off the pitch, 13th man and all that but hey if it means Chelsea Football Club finds its heart again and sheds some of those annoying tourists, corporate guests and ‘good-time Charly’ hangers-on then personally I can live with it. Just don’t ask me to get up and clap in the sixteenth minute or yell abuse at the fat Spanish waiter because I’m too busy admiring the likes of Hazard, Oscar, David Luis, Demba Ba and Juan Mata and hoping we can after all pull another couple of trophies out of what so far has been a pretty depressing season.

ta for listening – true-blue edenbray 

Time for all true Chelsea fans to stand up, stand up but don’t block my view I paid good money for my ticket too …