In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was print. James A. Catton was the earliest significant figure in football journalism, writing for the Preston Herald in 1875. Forty years later, he recalled “”In days long ago when Association football players wore beards and breeches, instead of being clean shaven and donning shorts or running pants, newspapers, as a whole, took very little notice of matches.

The reports were brief, and there were none of the personal paragraphs, garrulous items, and more or less sensational news which are now part not only of weekly periodicals, but of morning and evening newspapers.” In 1886 James A. Catton began to write for the weekly “The Athletic News” under the pen-name “Ubique”, later calling himself “Tityrus”. He subsequently became editor of The Athletic News and was acknowledged as the most important football writer in Britain.

As interest in Association Football increased, so did the coverage. One of the most important sources of information for supporters were the Saturday evening “pinks”, with their emphasis on local teams. Sadly now a dying breed, these were often the only way of finding out how other teams got on and were usually printed within minutes of the final whistle being blown at games.

A technological revolution was born in January 1927 when BBC radio broadcast its maiden commentary, featuring a game between Arsenal and Sheffield United, with the FA Cup Final being broadcast for the first time that same year. By 1931 the BBC was broadcasting over 100 games per season. Radio ownership was in its infancy at this time, with only approximately 30% of households owning a “wireless”. The Alan Green of that era was George Allison. He devised a system to help listeners understand what was going on, consisting of a diagram with a football pitch divided into squares which was published in the Radio Times.

Allison’s broadcast assistant would call out the number of the square where the ball was being played, and when the ball was deliberately passed back to the goalkeeper (a legal if time wasting tactic up until 1992, for the benefit of younger readers), Allison would announce “and it’s back to square one”, thus originating a phrase which would become part of the English language.

The horrendous economic conditions and poverty of the late 1920s and early 1930s led to a fall in match going, and radio coverage of league games was blamed. As a result, the Football League banned live commentary of their games, a dictat which continued until after the Second World War. However, the FA Cup Final continued to be broadcast throughout the 1930s, with the fixture becoming part of the fabric of the nation, due in part to increased ownership of radios, with over 70% of households owning a radio by 1939. Football broadcasting resumed after the Second World War, with the BBC showing the first non-Final FA Cup game between Blackpool and Bolton in the 1947 5th round.

The early 1950′s saw British audiences treated to their first taste of overseas football at the 1954 World Cup, and in 1955 the fledgling Independent Television broadcast games from the first season of the European Cup, which might have featured Chelsea, had it not been for the club caving into the FA over their participation. In the same year, BBC started showing highlights from First Division games for the first time in Soccer Special.

It was however in 1964 that a seismic shift took place with the birth of a national institution – Match of the Day on BBC2. Originally broadcast in black and white, colour transmissions of football hightlights started in 1969 and by the time Chelsea faced Leeds in the 1970 FA Cup final, the game was played out before a record audience of 20 million. By the early 1980s the Football League had signed a contract for regular live games on TV, but the broadcasters weren’t to know that the decade would see an unparalled era of crowd trouble, and that poorly maintained grounds all over the country would eventually claim the lives of scores of fans.

By the middle of the decade, football fans were generally perceived as scum, especially by the Government. The Minister for Sport, former Olympic rower, Colin Moynihan, and originator of a proposal to bring in compulsory ID cards for supporters, described fans as “the effluent society”, and a leader in The Times of 18 June 1985 described the game as “…a slum sport, watched by slum people”.

It was around this time, inspired by the culture of music fanzines which had sprung up in the 1970s and early 80s, the first football fanzines emerged. “When Saturday Comes” was launched in 1986 and is still going strong over 25 years later, with the same editor. Suddenly, if you had opinions and had access to a photocopier, you could start a fanzine yourself. All you needed was a few mates to help distribute it. And some of the titles were, and remain glorious – WSC used to list those available such as Gillingham’s legendary Brian Moore’s Head Looks Uncannily Like London Planetarium, which is still going, albeit online these days. There used to be a wonderful shop in the Charing Cross Road called Sportspages, where you could buy fanzines, and whenever I was in London in the late 80s, I’d go there simply to read.

And as befits a club which has long had a creative, imaginative, talented fanbase, Chelsea fans were swift to embrace the concept of the fanzine. “The Chelsea Independent” was launched in 1987 and was a fixture on the Fulham Road until 1999, being replaced in 2000, in the very early days of the internet, by CFCNet. However, after the print version of The Chelsea Independent ceased, help was at hand for those seeking a physical fix for the tube or the train with the launch of Matthew Harding’s Blue & White Army, which subsequently became the legendary and much loved CFCUK (which is, as everyone knows, is still available on match days for only a pound. Urry up).

At the dawn of the digital era, one of the single biggest changes in how football fans interact was created by the BBC. In 2003, they put together a collection of internet forums for each club in the Premier League, togethe with forums for the lower divisions and Scottish football via the BBC website under their “606″ banner. This provided a first opportunity for many football fans, including myself, to publicly put forward their views, not only on their club, but on other clubs too. It is fair to say that 606 changed my own life as I started writing about football for the first time since my early teens, when I used to sit down at my Corona typewriter on a Saturday evening and write my own slant on the day’s scorelines.

However, due to the BBC’s strict moderation rules, and the fact the boards closed at 10pm, just minutes after midweek games, dissatisfaction set in quite early, and as a result those fans with the necessary technical know-how began to drift away to start their own forums, where membership could be denied to those perceived as “numpties” (numpties of course being the forerunners of trolls). With relatively low running costs, independent forums, run for fans by fans, sprang up all over the place. CFCUK launched their own website, as well as remaining in print. CFCNet remains the behemoth of Chelsea forums, with membership running into thousands. The After Hours Football Club was one of the first descendants of 606, started by an enlightened Gooner, but with sections for individual clubs.

This site hosted a particularly lively Chelsea forum, many of whose members congregated in the So Bar on matchdays, at the end housing the toilets, dubbing themselves “Bog Enders”. The BBC 606 forums sadly closed their doors for the last time on 31st May 2011, at a time when blogging has become increasingly popular. Organisations such as “Word Press” have made it possible to produce highly-professional websites at minimal costs, and “TheChels.Net” is one such blog that’s benefited. The beautifully-titled “Plains of Almeria” is the home of the cerebral blogger, attracting some of the highest calibre Chelsea writers around, and the fledgling “Mowing Meadows” has in a short space of time become a hugely-respected part of the blogging scene.

And of course, it’s not just the written word that’s available to Chelsea fans. Regular readers will recall that I spent a memorable evening in Putney recently with the Chelsea Football FanCast team (other pods are also available), and coupled with the club’s own in-house TV channel and media outlets, you have to ask yourself where the future lies for traditional media.

If you’re a Chelsea fan, with all the above options open to you, why should you waste your time on old media? Why listen to the bile on TalkSport when you can listen to your fellow-fans talk about the action on a podcast?

Why should you read what are still known, even online, as “the papers”? Why subject yourself to the bile of, say, Patrick Barclay, when you can read Joe Tweeds or Tim Rolls? The latter gentlemen are as informed about the club as Barclay, and what’s more, they care. And they’ll have paid for their own match tickets.

Why is Martin Lipton more relevant than Dan Levene of the Fulham Chronicle? Dan is a paid journalist, but at least he genuinely cares about the club and is the only professional worth following on Twitter.

Basically the difference between a journalist and a blogger is money. A journalist gets paid. A blogger does it for love and enjoyment, in their spare time.

The problem with the self-appointed righteous brothers of the former Fleet Street is that they believe they are still running the game. Hence the witch-hunts against those they perceive as sinners (certain players, certain club) and the paeans of praise for their favourites (again, certain players, certain clubs).The sole remaining area in which the hacks still have any kind of real influence is the England team, simply because there’s fewer new media resources dedicated to the national teams. The traditional journalists are dinosaurs, and extinction is coming. Another 50 years, and like the Saturday evening “pinks”, they’ll be consigned to history.

Acknowledgements
Contrary to popular belief, I do occasionally research these articles and I’m grateful to the following resources:

Spartacus Educational for background on the early history of football journalism and broacasting

The next web.com for a potted history of the now-sadly defunct 606

Soccerlens.com for Hugo Steckelmacher’s excellent article on the evolution of the fanzine on March 27th, 2008

Recommended Links

There’s a lot of good reading out there:-

 plainsofalmeria.co.uk

mowingmeadows.wordpress.com

www.cfcnet.co.uk

transparentsport.com/cfcuk

Recommended Forums

ahfcchat.com

chelseafancast.com/forum

Social Media

AHFC and ChelseaFancast are both on Facebook. ChelseaFancast are also on Twitter, where you can find bloggers referred to above (@mowingmeadows @JoeTweeds @tim_rolls ) and many more, together with Dan Levene’s account, @BluesChronicle.

You can also follow me @BlueBaby67

Introducing Campaign55 – A New Initiative from Chelsea Pitch Owners’ Shareholders

I’m sure that the events of last Autumn connected with Chelsea Pitch Owners are only too fresh in the minds of most Chelsea fans.

One of the reasons that the proposal put before CPO shareholders at October’s EGM failed to be carried, was the efforts of a group of CPO shareholders who banded together under the name Say No CPO. 

After the EGM, Say No continued to put pressure on the board of Chelsea Pitch Owners in connection with outstanding issues such as the disputed/misold shares, which are the subject of a report currently being compiled by Gray Smith of the CPO board, and also the “marriage value” of the ground and the shares.

However, over the last couple of weeks, following extensive correspondence and meetings, members of Say No have decided to launch a fresh initiative in connection with Chelsea Pitch Owners called Campaign55.

SNCPO stalwarts Clint Steele and Dave Spring have stated their intention that going forward Say No’s position is intrinsically opposed to any disbanding of CPO, and any move away from Stamford Bridge.  However, Campaign55 is intended as a progressive movement. And here I must declare my hand. 

Who are Ya?

I’ve reported and blogged on CPO issues for TheChels over the last couple of years and have been a member of SNCPO.  One of the most frequent allegations against SNCPO (mainly by CFC Truth, themselves a shadowy group with no public spokesperson) was that the group was faceless and “not transparent” – something I have certainly taken issue with, never having sought to hide my identity, save for the nickname I’ve always used in blogs. 

Campaign55 has a steering group of three – myself and fellow CPO shareholders Darren Mantle and Adil Pastakia.  However, we want this group to represent as many fans as possible and we are looking to affiliate with as many supporters’ groups as possible.  We might be the shareholders, but we want to get views of the fans in the street, the pub and the blog, and pass these on to the board. 

A Twitter account, Facebook page and an email address have  been created, and a mission statement prepared. The website is now live at http://www.campaign55.org/ . and an appearance on the Chelsea Football FanCast is planned in the weeks ahead.

What’s It All About, Then?

The choice of Campaign55 as a name took a lot of deliberation and involved not just the steering group, but members of the wider SNCPO group.  It’s our belief that the club should ideally be looking to expand Stamford Bridge to a capacity of 55,000.  We genuinely feel that the 60,000 capacity being mentioned in recent communications from the club is not a realistic ambition.

With the exception of the true marquee games like Manchester United and Barcelona, it’s becoming easier and easier for fans who can still afford tickets to pick up the inevitable “spares”.  Even for games like the recent match with Tottenham, tickets were available for those with nil loyalty points.  Five years ago, that wouldn’t have happened. We’ve seen plans which show how the ground could be extended without disturbing the historically significant, and difficult to dismantle, East Stand, and leaving the relatively new West Stand intact.

However, if, after full consultation with Chelsea Pitch Owners and Hammersmith & Fulham Council, it can be proved beyond all reasonable doubt and economic viability the ground can’t be extended, then Campaign55 would support moving to a new 55,000 seater stadium within the historic Chelsea FC catchment area, i.e. Earl’s Court or Battersea.

Clubbing Together

We are serious about this endeavour, and as a result letters of introduction will be sent to Bruce Buck, the Chairman of Chelsea FC, together with the Board of Chelsea Pitch Owners.  We are also taking steps to liaise with Hammersmith & Fulham Council in order to make the voices of our fans heard.

Just the Beginning

Campaign55 is in its infancy, but all of us involved are determined to use the movement as a conduit between the fans, the CPO organisation and the club to ensure that in the crucial medium to long term ahead, the interests of all Chelsea supporters are represented.  This is just the beginning.

The Twitter account address for Campaign55 is @Campaign55, you can access the Facebook page via http://www.facebook.com/campaign55 and email the team at campaign55cfc@gmail.com.

I’m also happy to answer questions about Campaign55 on the comments thread here, or through my own Twitter account @BlueBaby67

“Pitch Owners Fancast (POF) – crazed sect who meet in a Putney bar back room every Monday.” – Those Pitch Owners Factions, A Cut-Out-And-Keep Group by Group Guide by Tim Rolls, Plains of Almeria blog, 18/01/12″

Over the past few years, there’s been an explosion in football fans getting their fix of the beautiful game through emerging media rather than traditional print and broadcast sources, a topic this column will be exploring further in the coming weeks.

A decent ip3 player is now relatively cheap, and a market that appears to be rapidly expanding is that of “podcasting”. Early podcasts were produced by the BBC (Fighting Talk and Mayo & Kermode’s cinema reviews are the ones which spring most rapidly to mind), but now it’s possible for anyone with a decent idea and determination to broadcast on a subject that interests them and gather in listeners via social media.

A handful of Chelsea Podcasts are available, including the club’s official offering, together with fan-based offerings such as “The Chels” and the beautifully titled “The Podding Shed”. However, with a cult following and weighing in at 200 episodes, the daddy of the podcast has to be “The Chelsea Fancast”.

Founded by producer David Chidgey (aka Stamford Chidge), the show is recorded in Putney on a Monday night with a cast of reprobates and ne’er do wells who follow Chelsea over land and sea, and this week I took the opportunity to join them to discuss the week’s victories over Benfica and Villa.

The joining instruction said “we meet at 7pm for a 7.30 ko”, but sadly Chidge got delayed in the rush hour, and by the time the incredibly-complicated equipment was set up, it was almost 8pm. Ah yes, the equipment. To the podcast listeners it might sound like a few blokes sitting round a table, but the section of the bar where the show is recorded is almost L-shaped, with a long padded bench (cell?) along a wall.

The usual co-presenters, of whom more shortly, sit alongside each other each with a microphone, with the casual visitors located in “the benches”, sharing one mike between them. As ringmaster, Chidge not only gets his own, very professional microphone, but is also poised over a laptop, wearing headphones and all the mikes are linked up into a mini-mixing desk so presumably he can fade up/down contributors/miscreants.

As for this week’s co-presenters, they’re names recognizable to most Chelsea fans as well as the podcast audience; Darren Mantle is well-known to many for his periodical media appearances and organizing the huge flags that roll across the ground on matchdays. Similarly, Ross Mooring is another noted blogger, who also did a huge amount of work in the Autumn with Say No CPO. They’re joined by Chris Norman, aka Celery Terrorist, Paul “Pablo” Jeffreys and “John Thomas”, better known as ChelTel.

At the Benches mike, are myself, Oskar the Swedish Blue, and Mike, who is visiting from the US and has dropped by to join in the show – I’m told a lot of listeners from abroad, particularly from the US, do this when they’re in town.

Chidge does a sound level test, and away we go. In spite of the free-wheeling feel the show gives to the listener, the presenters receive a script from Chidge in advance, and the show features a number of set-pieces, such as The Fannies, including the Celery and Guinness moments, and “You’re on CFFC!”

The presenters and benches get introduced, and I can’t help feeling slighly nervous as the microphone is turned to me. Chidge is remarkably kind throughout and I name-drop Old Mother Baby wherever I can, particularly attempting to blame her for talking me into going to the Villa game on Saturday when my initial reaction after the Albion disaster wasn’t to go. I’m also the only member of the panel who was at both Benfica and Villa, and point out in no uncertain terms that the only one to be at both games was “a girl”.

The Celery and Guinness awards are dished out to Torres for his goal, particularly the celebration which was deemed to be “proper Chels” and Branna’s double. The search for Chelsea’s all-time best XI continued with a look at the pick of our defensive midfielders (a choice between Ray Wilkins, Makalele, Stanic, Essien, Ballack and Spackman), and in the “Shall We Sing a Song for You?” segment, I bellow “Oh Dennis Wise,scored a f **c king great goal” so loudly that I nearly deafen Chidge through his cans.

Darren contributes to proceedings by causing what can only be described as a “gas incident”. Following on from the Best XI, Spackman is the subject of “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, with an especial mention in despatches for his giving Martin Keown, the original possessor of a monkey’s head, a slap. Whilst off-colour language is permitted, only Darren’s favourite “c” word is absolutely vetoed, and when he eventually can’t help himself, Chidge groans and puts his head in his hands.

There’s a fag/drink/loo break at about 9.15, but by the time proceedings are starting to wind up, it’s 10.30. I counter a suggestion of possibly discussing Chelsea Pitch Owners with “this show’s already gone on long enough”, and a paeon of praise for Mata “coming inside” results in the entire crew corpsing for getting on for five minutes in a style reminiscent of the late Brian Johnston.

Eventually, almost three hours after the recording began, Chidge asks us for our Twitter addresses and in thanking me for appearing praises TheChels, particularly Chelsea Youth who is hailed by the rest of the team as a “legend”. Finally, Chidge ends with the traditional “keep it blue, keep it carefree” and we all join in with “UP THE CHELS!”

The boys start packing away the equipment, and the recording ends for another week. I finally get home at midnight from a long but hugely enjoyable evening.

I’ve obviously not revealed all from this week’s broadcast in the hope that you’ll listen for yourselves. You can download The Chelsea Fancast free from iTunes, (Download or Subscribe) and visit the fansite at chelseafancast.com, where you can also join the forum.

You can follow the fancast team on Twitter:-

David Chidgey -@DavidChidgey
Darren Mantle -@DarrenMantle
Ross Mooring – @RossMooring
Chris Norman – @CeleryTerrorist
Paul Jeffrey – @pauljeffrey87
John Thomas – @ChelTel

Many thanks to the team for letting me join them this week, and hopefully if I didn’t make too big an idiot of myself they’ll have me back.

Over the coming weeks we’ll be taking a further look at the ways in which emerging media is making life easier for football fans, and in the meantime you can access my random thoughts on Twitter @BlueBaby67.

Sometimes I sit in utter amazement; it’s pretty much like a hypnotic trance, you know when a snake is being serenaded by a snake charmer?

Some people think that I sit there in a hypnotic trance most of the time, but they’re the people I ignore and so I should. After all, the negative people in our lives should be distanced and expelled to somewhere more suitable.

There is a reason as to why I sit there in utter amazement and the fact of the matter is that some people have no logic, or should I go as far as saying that they have no brains, or if they actually do have any grey matter, they don’t use it to the best of their ability?

Life is a patience game, perhaps with age you begin to learn about patience, especially where Chelsea are concerned. Truthfully, supporting Chelsea should carry a health warning. I could start giving the old speech of ‘In my day’ but really, if I gave that speech then I would be here all day rabbiting on about the pre-Roman days, in fact, even the pre-Ken Bates days, but I won’t, not unless someone asks.

Talking of health warnings, I was in the ICU at the Royal Brompton Hospital in 2003, when Chelsea beat Leicester 2-1 at Stamford Bridge; our first home game under Roman. I just blame Spurs, it stems back to 1967, after all I must have known that they had beaten us in the FA Cup Final whilst in my Mum’s womb.

1973 wasn’t that much better, but that is altogether another story, un-Chelsea related, for which to this very day I still blame Spurs for. The first words uttered by me after waking up in the ICU by the way, happened to be “Did we beat Leicester?”

You see, my gripe comes from some irrational Chelsea fans that have very little patience; an example of this irritation comes from the first game of the season against West Bromwich Albion when a section of fans booed at half-time. I personally want to know if these are the same fans who asked on Twitter after three days of the transfer window if we had signed anybody.

To be quite honest, the transfer window drives me mad because all of the intolerable people, in my opinion, appear and say that Roman should spend his money on this player and that player, not giving a hoot about how much would be coming out of Roman’s wallet. These fans should actually think themselves lucky that we have Roman and perhaps could sing his name at games?

If you read the above thinking, that’s not me with regards to the booing and the transfer market ramblings, then great. I am personally not aiming my gripes at every Chelsea fan, but there are some that test my patience and believe me, I have an enormous amount of patience and take everybody on their own merits.

You see, I was in the middle of writing a piece a few months ago, but then aborted it. The piece went along the lines of being a Chelsea fan from 1905-1955. If I had been born in 1890 (Actually, if I had been born in 1890 I might not have survived to see Chelsea formed at all, which I’d blame Spurs for!)

By the time Chelsea were formed I’d have been 15, add on another fifty years and I would have been 65, before I had of seen Chelsea win anything. Personally I had to wait 27 years before I saw Chelsea win anything anyway, but I did say that I’m not going with the ‘In my day’ speech, there are fans the same age as me and older who faced the same length of time and more without seeing a major trophy.

The amazement I suppose cuts both ways, my amazement, apart from the above is that I realise how lucky I am that I was born in an era where I have seen Chelsea win more trophies than I ever thought that the club would, plus I am still alive (at the point of writing this anyway!)

I suppose my message here is for people to think of the past and to enjoy the here and now. Patience my friends, is a virtue, my love affair with Chelsea Football Club will last forever, will their love affair with Chelsea Football Club last forever too?

And we’re off! Boooo!!

With the second game under our belt, it feels like the season really is underway.

So it’s welcome back to Saturday afternoons following Chelsea through sun or rain – or even just in front of the pc or telly.

Welcome back to the sea of blue along the Fulham Road. Welcome back to the excitement. To the emotion. To the ardent fans.

And to a small minority of supporters who appear to think they are being clever by booing their own players.

Now some would argue they have a point. Against Stoke City we were not good. Truth is, we were poor in the first half but improved as the game went on and barring two good saves from Begovic we would have won.

Stoke were over-physical, and in my opinion a different ref may have been less tolerant with them. Perhaps our lack of a creative midfield player was shown up again, but The Britannia is a difficult ground and few will come away from there with a win this season.

Against West Brom it was more of the same: a poor first half, followed by increasing improvement in the second. So maybe they have a right to boo, these people? We are entitled to expect better from a team of overpaid prima…… oh yawn, I cannot write that crap, but you know the sort of thing: you hear it in many places after the game.

It’s the sort of logic that says a player must play well simply because his wage packet is massive. It goes along with the inane logic that booing your players will help them improve.

But what we saw at Stamford Bridge really was promising. Despite the fact that we were shocked by conceding an early goal and we struggled to gain some sort of control for the next half hour, we saw a performance that improved as the game went on. True, we could have gone 0-2 down; equally we could have gone in level at half time.

We saw Villas Boas have the bravery to make an early substitution; we saw chance after chance created in a second half of almost total domination. We saw Branislav Ivanovic come on so that we could maintain our pressing even further upfield, his pace minimising the risk of a breakaway as we pressed. We saw yet another almost-certain penalty appeal dismissed.

What else did we see? Nearly four times as many chances created, two or three times as many chances on target, seven corners compared to four, 54% of possession compared to 46%. And on top of that we saw Anelka equalise and then Bosingwa rip open the left hand side of their defence and send a perfect come-and-get-me ball across the area for Malouda to score. Game over: points won.

In short, we saw many positives. But we weren’t 3-0 up after ten minutes and we didn’t win 6-0 again, so obviously we didn’t see enough positives for these aficionados of the modern game. They booed.

But they paid their money, right. So they got a right, right?

Wrong.

I do not agree with those who believe that simply because they have paid a significant amount of money to watch the game, that they are entitled to express their negative opinion. They are not. What you pay for is right of entry into the ground, not a right to belittle and denigrate.

Morally and culturally it is both wrong and offensive to boo your own players.

Educated debate based on opinion is acceptable. Outright condemnation and denigration is not. In the emotional fervour of a packed stadium educated debate will always take second place to emotional reaction, but despite that, hostile derision and aggressive vilification of your own is unacceptable.

Let’s put it another way.

There are a minority in society who, for whatever reason, believe that the law is an ass. That’s their opinion: it does not give them the right to verbally abuse any policeman they see on duty.

Atheists are entitled to their beliefs. They are not entitled to abuse priests, vicars or rabbis when they are performing their duties. Similarly, those with religious beliefs are not entitled to sneer at atheists.

There are some who hold a view that British culture is being weakened and tarnished by the effects of immigration. I don’t personally follow their argument, but I guess they have a right to their view. What they do not have any right to do is to abuse human beings simply because they are, or appear to be, new to this country.

My analogies may not be perfect, but you get my drift?

So back to the game.

If you were one of the people who were booing on Saturday, could I ask you to do just one thing? It’s not difficult, even a moron with a migraine could manage it so I am sure that with a bit of effort even you can do it.

It’s simple: just don’t come to another game.

Now I know you are Chelsea through and through, maybe even your Dad and Grandfather were true blue. I’m sure you live and breathe Chelsea and spend every waking moment trawling through NewsNow for news of your heroes. I know you will stick up for Chelsea everywhere you go and will support them until you die.

But to be honest, we can do without your kind of support. That sort of negativity is, at best, pointless; at worst, it is highly damaging, both to the team and to individuals on the pitch. It’s not that I don’t understand your frustration. I do. We all share that at times. But you take it much too far.

I don’t know if you people (I won’t call you supporters, because you were not supporting) are the “Prawn Sandwich Brigade”. I don’t care, to be honest. All I care about is that you stop coming to Stamford Bridge.

Did you know that out there in the real world, in the world that does not revolve around you and your banal and facile existence, there are hundreds, possibly thousands of people who want to come to the Bridge to support Chelsea?

Note I said “…to support Chelsea”. Over land and sea. Through thick and thin. Good times and bad (the ridiculous thing is we’ve had nothing but good times in the last 10-15 years). Those people will be there to replace you. You won’t be missed.

And yes, they will shout and ooh and aah during a game. They will grumble when something bad happens, and drop their head into their hands when a pass goes astray. They will fall back into their seats with a moan and look skyward as they think “I could have bleedin’ scored that” as a shot powers skyward ten yards above the bar.

They will share the frustration of the fans around them when that happens. They will share the disappointment of the players. But they won’t boo.

Because unlike you, they are there to support the players. They’re not there for an afternoon’s entertainment. They wouldn’t even think of risking the morale of players or the performance of the team by behaving in such an unreasonably immature and irresponsible way.

Leave your seat available for someone who will support the players, the team and the club – when they need it most. On the pitch during a game.

We are all Chelsea. If you are a true Chelsea supporter you have a right to express your feelings. But during those ninety minutes you have an obligation, too: an obligation that outweighs your individual right.

As a Chelsea supporter you have an obligation to support.

So please, do us all a favour. If you want to boo, go to a pantomime.

As a Chelsea fan, how happy are you? I ask this now because, after the hugely-awaited Champions League game against Manchester Utd, I’m not happy.

The world’s most rubbish pre-match meal, combined with an extortionately priced vodka and lemonade, a log-jam at the turnstiles causing me not only to not get to the loo beforehand but to miss the first five minutes of the match and a hugely disappointing result has resulted in a distinctly grumpy baby.

This train of thought was started by a comment Martin Samuel made in his Daily Mail (apologies for citing the Mail in a family column) on Tuesday:-

“Football is locked in a cycle of violence, emotional if not physical, in which the majority of those in the stadium appear hugely dissatisfied at being there, as if they have been forced on to the pitch or into their seat at gunpoint.”

OK, the “cycle of violence” might be a bit of an exaggeration but the dissatisfaction element struck a chord with me and I responded in a comment which they printed:-

“There seems a general joylessness at football matches these days, even at successful clubs. The crowd seems to be divided into two – those who are there as tourists or on corporate jollies, or the genuine fanbase who are forking out a great deal of money in a time of hardship to watch multi-millionaires, most of whom wouldn’t give fans the time of day, and sometimes won’t even give 100% of their effort.”

This comment was borne of my own feelings at the moment. Our fans don’t seem happy. I’m not happy with the atmosphere in the stadium (non-existent at times last night during the biggest game of the season). Two many corporates/tourists have certainly spoiled the broth. And the emotional input of our players into the club seems also to have disappeared.

Although JT obviously loves the club and would run through a brick wall for it/us, he’s one of a dwindling number. Whilst Frank Lampard is a lovely guy, he seems preoccupied. Ashley will go wherever the money takes him. Drogba will do whatever’s best for Didier. Maybe that’s the true meaning of professional. You go out, you do your job and you get paid. And I think it’s rubbing off on the genuine fans.

The people for whom a trip to Chelsea is not part of a holiday to London, or a night out paid on someone else’s expenses. Us sad souls whose very existence is governed by the football schedule. Who scan the forthcoming fixtures on TV with anxiety to see how yet again the tradition of 3pm on a Saturday is fast becoming like the Holy Grail, almost impossible (all our weekend games in April are on a Saturday. Is this a record since we’ve become more successful?)

Before I moved to London, a matchday was broken up into components forming the whole. Train journey (and at the turn of the century given the state of the railways this would sometimes take up to 3 hours from Birmingham), pre-match meal, and match. The meal was quite important not only because of the length of my day, but not being a meat eater, a dog burger was out of the question.

The train journey was often the worst element, albeit much cheaper then (there was a magical time when you could get a walk-up day return to London for £14). And the most important bit. The match. And whilst 15 – 20 years ago we mightn’t have been seeing the quality that we often see now, there is no doubt in my mind that the players seemed happier and seemed to care more about the fans. Homegrowns such as Frank Sinclair, Eddie Newton and Andy Myers mightn’t have had the skill and/or talent of some players who’ve worn the shirt more recently, but at least they appeared to care.

For me the rot set in about 1998. Messrs Laudrup and Deschamps appeared to have absolutely no emotional rapport with the fans. Indeed Laudrup was unable to hack life in England altogether and soon disappeared. Deschamps hung on for a couple of years but was never a favourite – a really strong indicator of how fans feel is the song.

Did Deschamps ever have a song? Desailly struggled for one. A great player, but someone who appeared to be a professional in accordance with my definition. Coming up to date, how many players now don’t have songs? Ramires doesn’t have one (although he’s improving all the time). Boswinga never seems to have had one. Ashley Cole only tends to get one against Arsenal. I don’t think Cech’s ever had one. David Luiz, on the other hand, has gained instant cult status because he looks like he would like to die for the cause.

We as fans seemed happier early in the season, and this begs the question about correlation of happiness to on pitch success. Those early season romps against West Brom, Wigan and Blackpool, during which it looked as if we would carry all before us this season, seem an eternity ago. Is it the transition from likely Premiership winners to hoping to storm to 2nd place the cause? Is it the lack of free-flowing football we’ve seen in recent weeks?

Is it disillusionment over the apparent lack of commitment and willing to go for the jugular displayed by a number of our players? (best summed up by a friend of mine who had what the press described as “an altercation” with Drogba at Stoke last Saturday; he tells me the truth is the matter was misreported. He was by the corner flag and took exception to Drogba fannying about with a short corner when he thought a long corner might have resulted in a goal attempt.

They had a brief exchange of views and Paulo Ferreira did not have to drag Drogba away. My friend subsequently received a great deal of abused by a number of fans who feel that just because someone is wearing the shirt, they shouldn’t ever be criticised).

Personally my own happiness index could be measured mathematically as follows:-

Hopefully the elements will combine to produce the formula on Saturday.

So by now you’ve seen the image of the banners hung outside Cobham this morning, allegedly placed by a disgruntled Chelsea supporter.

Yet I’m sat here thinking there’s more to this than meets the eye.

Why was the banner a day late? If the supporter in question was fed up with the Wolves result, why didn’t they place it the morning after the match?

Ok they could have been late back from The Midlands, but still…. wasn’t it placed during the early hours anyway?

Equally, it’s a little convenient that there was a press conference due only hours afterwards, where the country’s media descended onto our training ground for the build up to our FA Cup match.

The predictable ‘supporter protest’ questions came early and Carlo handled them in good grace; “If it’s only one, there’s no problem. In Italy, it’s different. You can find outside the training ground 1,000 people not happy. It’s difficult to fight with 1,000. With one, you can manage.”

Echoing sanity, Carlo reasoned; “For a manager, it is important at this moment to have the support of the club, of the players, and obviously of the fans – minus one.”

What’s also fishy, is that almost all of the mainstream, and not so mainstream media have almost identical stories on what we’ve called ‘Bannergate’. Check out NewsNow, seriously, it’s almost as if they’ve all been written together.  As ever, the football is secondary to the headline.

You won’t find any Murdoch titles there, because he threatened to sue NewsNow and such sites for aggregating ‘his’ news, then cut them all off anyway and hid his content behind a paywall. Suits me, you’ve got to be a special kind of idiot to read that trash AND pay for the privilege.

However having played the media game a while, I’m all too aware of how it works. The journalists at the conference do exchange notes, and agree to a common theme for the next days news.  There are notable exceptions, but most are like pack animals, and they move together almost in unison, in all that they do.

It was especially apparent when Jose was manager, as his words could be snipped and quoted to fulfil any journalistic desire, yet Carlo is more coy and until recently, they’ve not really been able to get at him.

It’s widely known that the headline hunting tabloids will stoop to any depth in order to print something sensational. Phone tapping, entrapment, theft, coercion… in order to grab a few headlines, would you put a staged protest past them?

I certainly wouldn’t.

I sometimes think that we football fans are mad. We have to be, to keep the faith.

For supporters of yore, reaching a cup final necessitated an overnight camp outside the ticket office, or in our case portacabin.

These days for a big game it can mean being up at dawn for frustrating internet experience, with seven windows open at once.

And then there’s the superstitious element that seems to be a part of everyone’s matchday experience.

I started thinking about this on the day of the Albion game when I bumped into a couple of friends during an early visit to Lloyds Bar.

They were having the ‘All Day Breakfast’ (as habitués of SW6 will be aware, the All Day Breakfast at Lloyds Bar got its name through the wait you have to endure). I asked them why they were eating there in comparison to other local outlets where the breakfast is not only cheaper, but hotter.

“I’m really superstitious” replied Amanda. “We always come in here for breakfast”. This struck a chord with me.

For the previous weeks Charity Shield, as this column will refer to the game in perpetuity, I had deviated from the norm of bacon, mushroom, egg, beans, bubble & squeak, toast and coffee, and breakfasted exotically off smoked salmon and scrambled eggs with a glass of pineapple juice.

We lost to the Mancs. Seven days and a worker’s breakfast later, normal service was resumed.

And then there’s the music. There have, over the years, been certain pieces/songs which when heard on the day of a game have proved deadlier than a Siren’s song. Most notable was a game against Bolton just before Christmas 2003 and another meeting with a mate in Lloyds Bar.

During the course of the summer of 2002 a record called “A Thousand Miles” had been a big hit for an American singer named Vanessa Carlton, and it continued to be played not only into the autumn but throughout 2003 as well.

I had first heard this record played en route to a match on the way to the Manchester United game played on the Friday before the August Bank Holiday in 2002. The game finished in a draw. Thereafter, whenever I seemed to hear it on a matchday, we either drew or lost.

It got to the point that at the first notes of the distinctive piano intro, the radio would be off quicker than you could say Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink. Anyway, 13 December certainly proved to be unlucky. We were sitting by one of the TVs in Lloyds, and suddenly the infernal song began.

“Oh no”, I said to my friend. “You do know that this song is really unlucky?” and went through the litany of catastrophe that attended each matchday hearing. My friend laughed so much he nearly wet himself. “Just you wait”, I muttered forebodingly.

Neither of us were laughing at 5 o’clock, after we crashed to a 2-1 home defeat with JT putting through our net in injury time.

There are also other harbingers of doom. Johnny the Horse by Madness, most notably day we lost against Arsenal in 1999, having been 2-0 up at half time, with a very wet conga taking place at the front of the still unfinished West Stand. And Va Pensiere from Verdi’s Nabucco.

That’ll learn me to listen to Classic FM. And virtually anything by Edward Ball.

The above, combined with various diverse superstitions regarding clothing (lucky pants appear particularly popular), journeys to the game and drinking on matchdays, attaching not only to myself but my friends, would seem to prove that, to quote Blackadder, we’re “madder than Mad Jack McMad, the winner of this year’s Mr Madman competition”.

Finally, I share the sorrow of all of us who lumped on the Chels beating Blackpool 10-0. When we were four up at half-time it looked a distinct possibility. Even the MOTD2 team opined that we should have scored 14 or 15.

I’m really not bothered about the fact that the £500 quid I’d have won would have ensured a visit to Marseille in December, but I’m certain we’d have all revelled in the glory of becoming the first team in the Premiership to score 10 goals.