The intertwined tale of Chelsea and Claudio Ranieri.
Chelsea Football Club was formed in 1905 and fifty years later, they became Champions of England for the first time. The following year I was born, hence missing out by twelve months on the best year of the club’s existence up to that point. The next time they topped the domestic tree would be in 2005. Chelsea titles were just like London buses, regular as clockwork – one arrived every fifty years. Two years before the second title however, something happened at the club that would redefine perceptions of ‘success’ lifting the club to heights the like of which case-hardened fans such as me could hardly comprehend. Continue reading →
Watching football in the house of Cholo.
Following the dismissal of Jose Mourinho from the hot seat at Chelsea, one of the names mentioned as a the long-term replacement is Diego Simeone, currently managing Atletico Madrid in La Liga. There’s a relationship already in place between the two clubs with players moving between them. Could El Cholo be the next one to move from the Vicente Calderon to Stamford Bridge? If the Bookies are right it could well be the case. There is however, something special in the fit between the Simeone and Atleti. It’s something that just works; something that may not be transferable. It’s something I experienced earlier this year. Continue reading →
The political football – British Prime Ministers and the beautiful game
Home of the person who plays the number ten role..
Back in 1966, with the country basking in the glory of being World Champions, Prime Minister Harold Wilson took the opportunity to fold his political party into the celebrations by declaring that England only win the World Cup, when Labour are in power. Four years later, England were knocked out by West Germany at the quarter-final stage in Mexico. A few short days later, as the country voted Wilson out of office, he was at great pains to say that ‘the result of a football match does not affect the governance of the country.’ Whether that’s true or not, there’s a bit of a history over the past 50 years between those in residence at 10 Downing Street and the beautiful game. Continue reading →
Chelsea flop Jokanovic leads the Glory Hornet Boys back to the Premier League.
When Slavisa Jokanovic was appointed manager of Watford, few within the English game knew anything of him. Chelsea fans did, but their memories would not have stirred any great optimism for success.
Until October last year, mention the name of Slavisa Jokanovic to any English football fan, and you’ll probably have received a fairly blank expression in return. Mention it to a Chelsea fan of any vintage at all, and you’ll probably get a wry smile, and a nod of fairly unqualified contempt. Continue reading →
Smells like Teen Spirit?
Chelsea have been one of the Premier League’s most successful club over the past five years.
Over the last five years, Chelsea have been one of the top powers in English football. The West London club became European Champions in 20012, won the Premier League in 2010, adding the FA Cup to claim the domestic double, and won the old pot again in 2012. They also won the Europa League in 2013, and having already secured this season’s League Cup, look are odds on to win the league again. It’s all pretty impressive, but certainly not dominant. Despite the absence of any recent home-grown talent in Jose Mourinho’s the first choice eleven, the same cannot be said for the club’s youth team, across the same period. Continue reading →
Heroes of the beautiful game – Peter Osgood.
Peter Osgood, king of Stamford Bridge was my boyhood idol.
A while ago, I was invited to submit a guest article to the ‘grumpyoldfan’ website looking at a Hero of Youth. Here’s what I came up with:
I know this may make me sound like some curmudgeonly old moaner, locked into the past but casting my mind back around five decades or so, there was of course no computer games and kids’ TV lasted for a mere hour before the six o’clock news. Plus, if you had no interest in ‘sticky-back plastic’ or empty washing-up liquid bottles, such things could be of limited interest anyway. There was therefore little else to do other than go outside and play with a ball. Cricket in the summer – well sometimes, but overwhelmingly, football. Continue reading →
Is frustrated Wenger really lowering his sights to the Europa League?
Was it merely the effect of losing to Monaco, or would Arsene Wenger really prefer a run at the Europa League?
Nobody likes losing and, as with banging your head against a brick wall, the best thing you can say about it, is that it’s nice when it stops. Like some love-lorn teenage boy returning yet again from the bright lights of the coolest disco in town without having landed a dance with the best-looking girls, Arsene Wenger now appears to be lowering his sights from the Champions League, to the Europa League, the school disco of European club football. Perhaps Arsenal could be belle of the ball there. Some may call it a realistic assessment, Arsenal fans may well have a different description for it. Continue reading →
Game of Throw-Ins
Look out. Incoming!
It may seem like a relatively new phenomenon, but it’s not really, perhaps entering the norm when once it was deemed to be solely the modus operandi of adherents to the more muscular and robust approach to football, eschewed and sneered at by self-appointed sophisticates. No, not the professiona Continue reading →
Can we have our game back, please?
Fronting up for the Premier League clubs has been a financially rewarding experience for Richard Scudamore
News of the television rights cash bonanza for Premier League clubs has caused tidal waves of outrage and floods of advice in fairly equal measures. £5.136billion is a lot of money in anyone’s language, and deflating that down to approximately £12million per game rather puts the price of the football’s top-notch match ticket prices somewhat into the shade – but more of that later. Continue reading →
Gary Thacker 