Having put the trial of John Terry behind us, Chelsea fans face another ordeal in the next week as as the continuing vexed issues surrounding CPO come to the fore again. For those of you who are new to this column, or have been living in a cave for the past ten months, a brief recap. The board of Chelsea Football Club proposed to purchase the lease from Chelsea Pitch…
Over the past year, especially since the launch of Chelsea’s ill-fated proposal to purchase the lease of the pitch at Stamford Bridge, I have had the good fortune to meet many more Chelsea fans. Amongst these decent, upstanding citizens are not only those who spend their spare time entertaining their fellow supporters by blogging and podcasting, but those who are involved with trying to make things better for everyone. A…
It must be about a month ago that I had a notification on Facebook (or “The Face” as Old Mother Baby refers to it); “Ross Mooring has invited you to an event”. The event in question was marked “KTBFFH pre-climb drinks” in Balham, and not having any previous engagement for the evening concerned, I accepted. The event in question was a send-off for two fine, brave, Chelsea fans, Clive Osgood…
The alarm clock on my mobile rang. I was surprised. Why was I using my mobile as an alarm? I reached out and looked at the time. It said 06.00. Why was I in an unfamiliar room? Suddenly I realised I was in Stuttgart and in less than two hours I was going to be on a train to Munich to watch my beloved Chelsea play in the Champions League…
This night had it all. There was hope. There was despair. There were tears. There was joy. And that was just the three and a half hours after the game it took from the time we got on the U-bahn until the time the 03.25 Munich to Stuttgart express departed Hauptbahnhof. At 04.25. But most of all it was a night at the end of which, for all those who travelled…
A “Travels” is a rare visitor at this time of the year; however as we have reached the Final of Europe’s premier club competition what better way than to mark it with recollections of what was, for many of those who went, a very favourite European trip. The 2010 – 2011 Champions League campaign began with exceptionally smooth progress through a first stage comprising Marseille, Zilina and Spartak Moscow, ending…
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…
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…
“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…
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…