The Craziest Of Crazy Chelsea Seasons

A cup final victory is something special to savour, there was a time in my younger years that seeing Chelsea at Wembley would always be a dream.

Then we had the full members cup final against Man City, who in those days were on their uppers as well, it was a day that I have never forgotten even after all our success of recent times, it was even then a special day for clubs who could not compete with the then money clubs of the day who won everything.

There is no love lost on Liverpool, and thankfully it’s not a place I am likely to visit again in the near future. Its team like its city is degenerating slowly, they have not been a real major player in the league for 20 years, they live off their old Moore’s (pools) money funded success of the 1970s and 80s.

Their history before the 1950 was nothing of note, Everton were regarded as the cities number one team, the change came via a clever man called Shaklee and money.

Liverpool were really a good second division team who major claim to fame went back to 1915 when they and Manchester United were found  guilty of match fixing which send us down to the then division 2, we were saved and the players involved were punished.

Anyway chewing over that we lost 4-1 and that we rested the vast majority of the team we are expecting to field in the CL final, it does somewhat get under the skin a bit that some media outlets considered last nights game more important than both FA cup final and the up and coming CL final.

I give you our degenerating BBC, once a fine bastion of British Broadcasting now peddle cheap tat like a daily gutter rag. Really, was that game that important to Liverpool who had another dire season, but still the BBC pander to as establishment crumbling team who are on the fringes trophy hunting, no FA Cup tv coverage either, the BBC are a joke of a sports media chasing the heels of ITV who lost the plot years ago

In fact all the teams and supporters who take great delight at taking jealous side swipes at Chelsea, and Manchester City claim of new money and purchased silverware, which clearly in the past never happened did it!

Never in the history of football did Arsenal and Manchester United use big money to out bid and buy success, it clearly has never ever happened! What is not liked is that other teams can now use the tool they solely expected to be theirs and theirs alone, clearly it’s just not fair.

Anyway what is football really about? is it having the biggest bank balance so the so called richest win everything, does the bank balance really ensure that silverware is guaranteed, no, money is part of the foundation but you also need owners that are fit and responsible for take into care of our clubs (so far our owner qualifies on all accounts even if he’s a little trigger happy), there are countless others who have failed badly regardless of so called wealth.

There needs to be a set of good players, and as we have seen this season a manger who knows how to use the tools he has been given. Then with those things in place are you set to win something. In fact I thought that winning games was the object of football, not wanting to be the richest and complain that it’s not fair others are more rich.

Time to wake up, there will always be someone richer, someone bigger, it’s a fact of life.

Arsenal can argue they are well run, and indeed they are on a sound financial base, clever management and a bit of local fixing got them a new stadium and greater revenue streams, but what have they done with that money…… well nothing really, they have progressed absolutely nowhere in 8 years other than becoming one of the PL biggest chokers.

The dreams of kids coming through the ranks with Wengers continued African stream of wonder products has still yet to produce any results, in all that time they have had money to invest, but with short arms and long deep pockets with a deep set ignorance they are no closer to a winning team then they were last year, or the year before or the year before that as well etc etc.

Tottenham have done what Tottenham do best, flatter and flirt, but fall well short when crunch time comes, old Harry Bassett lost his seasons blueprint for success the moment Capello exited stage left his teams collapse was maybe the reason that the FA (who have fouled up everything in preparation for the Euro 2012 in fact would fail by miles the good and proper conduct they insist on all new owners) have chosen Roy Hodgeson as England manager, who hopefully will save us some credibility come June.

A capable manager is what you could call Roy and it will be interesting to see what he does with both aging players (some who gave him a difficult time in a previous job) and the new hopes for the future, or was it all about the compensation package that Levy wanted from the FA, anyway Levy still has his manager, but maybe his stock value is not as high as it once was.

There are going to be some major changes over the next few years, financial fair play (excuse me for laughing) more like meddling in aspects that really are of no concern to FIFA or UEFA, in telling clubs how to spend their money, the rich list will change a little due to new mega investment, (but the old guard will still be the same) PSG have the same funding as Man City, more and more powerful owners will enter football and buy clubs.

If fair play is going to be the new thing can we insist that both Barcelona and Real Madrid pay back their amazing bank loans and taxes first! How can you expect the same when other countries have there own different rules.

In what we could easily claim to be a crazy season and one possible immortal game to come, well biblical, we play Bayern at their home ground….. lol this could only happen with us, and we are short of a centre defence and key players, we are going into battle with one hand tied behind our back yet again.

This time I expect nothing, we have pulled the iron out of the fire once to often, we can hope and pray and never give in, something we have and proved to the football world is our defiance of we will not yield, as case of not the 300 at Thermopilie but the 18 at Bayern!.. I’m only jesting we have achieved already way beyond the realms of possibility, but we can dream, and what a dream that could be.

The club management have been bold in going for Battersea power station, (they deserve much credit and support) it’s a good long term essential move, and will provide us with the extra revenue source that we need, and maybe a new iconic stadium, with its own village income.

Its something that has been crazy for many years, we attract 40,000+ customers to a game and throw them on to the streets after its finished (bloody business suicide). These customers (you and me) go and spend our money elsewhere.

The amount of rude and half witted challenged establishments around Stamford Bridge but we are sometimes treated like a carrier of the plague. What a difference to the local revenue streams, when we do move, 40,000 customers move away, and a polite kick in the knackers of some big headed and ignorant establishments.

With a real Chelsea village we can still spend our money with the club, in its new and varied outlets.

When we are talking of a new stadium look to what the US have as their stadiums, for that is what the new stadium will be like, and for once it can’t come soon enough. I love SB but it’s not the SB of old, it has very little resemblance to what I would call SB, time to move on.

Blackburn have gone, and what a fine example of a mess they have been.

Whilst Wolves went a while ago at least they a better run club than Blackburn, poor old Jack walker must be turning in his grave. Their current owners are a farce, piggy backing credibility and fame of a great club for their own means, whilst being clueless on how to run a football team.

Now we come down to the final two, QPR who have offered nothing but aggravation, arguments and the will just to be negative. They have given nothing to the PL other than seek their own existence with the desired to upset as many along the way as possible, even the crazy gang of Wimbledon had something to offer, this lot have nothing.

City to win and Bolton to get 3 points at Stoke would make Sunday quite a spring afternoon.

Sadly a real blight on this season has been the officials and their constant headline craving actions, I had hoped we had seen the last of these fools like Poll who wanted to control the games so much they affected the results.

Again this season we have witnessed a real low in standards, mistakes on a weekend by weekend basis, which has manipulated the table to some extent, every club has had its woes. The FA have to address this problem with urgency, use technology to take away the doubt, and not allow people like Blatter to continue to leave opportunities open for the game to be manipulated by suspect means.

Why it should have been done years ago, and in the World Cup of 2010 the only people on the planet who did not see our Frank Lampard’s goal were the 3 officials, surely with so much at stake things have to change.

The FA do make sure that officials who support certain clubs have no involvement with their games, everyone is biased, so accept that fact and take away another problem from even happening.

One last sour point which seems to be plaguing not just our football but our social lives as well is that of taking offence over the most stupid things. I’m in full support of kicking nasty aspects like racism not just out of football but out of society (I live in a country where it is accepted by the government, it shows ignorance and stupidity) but too many people have become to thin skinned about the most trivial matters, that should really be just ignored and treated with contempt that is deserves.

It’s really about education and training, not witch hunting, its about being man enough to apologise if and when we ever overstep the mark or something was said out of turn in the heat of the moment…. as a child of the sixties and seventies, we were taught “sticks and stones” rhyme, its about time some people grew a backbone.

Posted by Voltaire

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