The first Chelsea game I missed I got to the ground and was actually inside standing on the terraces. But I didn’t see a single minute of Chelsea v Manchester United on 21st March 1970 and the official attendance of 61,479 includes three who saw none of the game. I’m still not sure if this has scarred me for life and is responsible for those recurring dreams I have about not getting to a game on time, but it definitely cannot have helped.
This was the Chelsea of Osgood, Cooke, Hudson and Bonetti and the team was on the way to winning the FA Cup and finishing third in the league. I must have been on at my parents to go to my first game and they had no experience of this at all, apart from my mum watching Bohemians back in Dublin. So what else would you pick for a Chelsea fan but home against Busby’s Manchester United as the game to go to. Younger fans of Premier League clubs today won’t believe that we just turned up on the day. In fact we queued for seats in the old West Stand and only missed the last ones by a handful of fans. So we walked round to the old North terrace and went and found a spot. My dad then decided that neither me, just coming up to 8, or my older brother who was 9 the next day, were going to see anything because we were too small. I don’t remember having any say in this but do remember the perplexed look the gateman had as my dad asked him to open the gate and let us leave the ground when nothing had happened on the pitch at all. I was in tears by then and cannot remember anything else about the day at all, except I think I had some sort of childish excuse that I tried to blame the tears on. To me ‘The Battle of Britain’ will always just be the film I was taken to see to make up for it, needless to say it didn’t.
Chelsea won 2-1.
My parents learnt from this and when I finally got to my first game (5/12/70) tickets were purchased in advance. Games over the next few years were still a rare treat and quite often it was FA Cup games that got picked. When I was a bit older and allowed to go alone I went to more games with the promotion season of 1976/77 getting up to a heady 7 games. Strangely in the next two seasons in Division One I saw no games at all. But leaving school and then starting to work was the catalyst and 1979/80 saw me starting to go regularly at home and seeing all home games from February on. I did make a howler of a mistake when choosing between a much-rearranged FA Cup 3rd round tie against lowly Wigan Athletic on the Monday and Newcastle at home the Saturday before in Division Two. I chose the cup and we lost.
Chelsea beat Newcastle 4-0.
For 1980/81 I had a season ticket and started thinking about going away. I missed the first three aways before debuting outside London at Cambridge United. A sequence of 64 games strangely started and finished with QPR as opponents. 1981/82 did have a slight problem of an away fan ban being imposed. I’d got used to going on football specials and suddenly there weren’t any, I didn’t drive and didn’t know anyone who did to get a lift from. A lot of people did beat the ban chancing it by going on normal trains and some got to midweek cup replays including one when there was also a train strike. The ban crumbled after so many Chelsea fans turned up at Watford that the police couldn’t have any pretence of keeping them out and opened the ‘away’ terrace. The official announcement came the following Friday the night before playing Liverpool in the FA Cup. Chelsea fans celebrated doubly the next day when we beat them 2-0. Another good run looked likely until early in 1982/83 we played Derby away midweek, at their special request to avoid trouble, and then they banned us too, it was the only game I missed that season, as we narrowly stayed up in the old Second Division in the rain at Burnden Park, Bolton.
The next year it is a different Chelsea we see and we take the Second Division by storm. I see my first complete season of games too and it is head and shoulders above the previous few seasons, which have only had the odd bright spot. So what do I do – go to University of Hull for three years! This means a conscious decision to miss loads of games, as it just will not be practical to see everything. I manage the first 9 games before a 2-month hiatus then another 9 straight games in and around the holidays. The gap should have been shorter with a trip planned from Hull to Newcastle on the 10th November. Back then I kept a diary and this is the entry: “An awful day on the whole. Got up reasonably early and picked up Paul, Jo and Rick. The timing wasn’t quite right as we got caught in traffic in York and lost time stopping in a pub in Salterton with very slow service. Got lost in the one way system in Newcastle but got to the ground just before 3. It was all ticket as rumoured and the police kept us and about 50-60 others to one side. It then turned out that we weren’t going to be let in at all; they moved us to a corner where frustratingly we could see a bit of the pitch. We finally gave up just after half time but then had to wait until they’d let us go. They were very unhelpful and rude but I haven’t decided whether a letter of complaint is worth writing (NB: I did write to the police but to no effect!).”
Chelsea lost 1-2.
(As a historical note there were a lot of all ticket games and early kick offs back then because of hooliganism rather than Sky. The ones you couldn’t get into were the “strictly” all ticket ones)
By 1986/87 I’m into a mix of what games I go to but decide Newcastle at home in November will be one of only two term time games. It has to be better than the previous choice a dire 0-0 with Watford. I know the best route and how long it will take me but don’t account for my temperamental Mini Clubman. I’d had a warning about a dodgy fuel gauge already but that had been in Hull, only a few hundred yards short of a garage. I’d also arrived in a service station on fumes but that was after sitting in a traffic jam for ages. This time I’m on my own and break down going up a hill somewhere in the East Midlands. I remember passing a garage a couple of miles back and had bought a fuel can for such emergencies. So I got out and trudged down the hill and got some petrol, no problem. That is until I get back to the car and find the passenger window smashed and my overnight bag stolen. The irony being I’d forgotten to lock that door when I got out. So if they’d just opened the door and nicked the bag I’d have got to the game. Instead I pull over at the next proper stopping place and try to do some running repairs to the gaping whole where the window was. After then driving down to London it becomes apparent that although there is nothing left to steal, apart from the stereo, it would be extremely foolish to leave the car parked anywhere in this state. So instead it is to my parents house and some surprised looks at my early arrival. But at least we haven’t repeated the result at home since.
Chelsea lose 1-3.
After leaving Hull I then didn’t miss a game for quite a while despite a season and a half living in Sheffield. I didn’t miss a game but endured relegation and a 46 game season in the old Second Division. 1989/90 sees me back in the south and back in the top flight. So you can guess what happens next – I miss a game and it is Spurs! They are doing building work and typically we play them in September and they haven’t finished. I think they’d asked to only play away only and the League refused but the upshot is we play, it is all ticket and we get a zero allocation. This is pre-Internet so I have few options and got the obvious one out of the way quick by phoning Spurs and finding there was no way I could get one without being a member before the season had started. So I traipsed round every ticket agency I could find in the West End but to no avail. The options are turning up and trying to find a tout, going to the cinema Chelsea have hired to show it live or not going. I opted for the latter and went record shopping. My brother lived in Brixton then and I’d arranged to go round and thought he was taking the mick when he told me the score, especially as he is a QPR fan. He wasn’t, but luckily I’ve seen plenty of wins at Three Point Lane since and this isn’t even the biggest.
Chelsea won 4-1.
We have Luton Town away over the Christmas holiday period and it is in the middle of their ridiculous attempted away fan ban. I’d got in the previous time, as I know Chelsea fans from that part of the world but this time they’d tinkered with how their members could apply for tickets. The fan who was supposed to get us tickets didn’t understand it so said he could only get 2; we needed at least 4 so I missed out. We only found out later that he could have got all 4. Next time round I didn’t rely on him and got a ticket via my brother who got a membership card off a Millwall fan he knew. I’ve never seen Chelsea win at Luton in 7 miserable visits.
Chelsea won 3-0.
Two games missed in one season!
Sometimes you just know that a cup game will be a draw. When Portsmouth at home came out of the hat in the League Cup 3rd round in October of the 1990/91 season I did the usual thing and looked at the possible replay date. It said 6th November and I might as well have left there and then. 0-0 can’t remember anything about the game. On the replay date I have tickets for Sinead O’Connor as a surprise birthday present for one of my oldest established friends. Okay it is a surprise so I could take her to the replay instead, except she is a Leeds fan and probably would not think it amusing. Mind you she guessed where we were going as soon as we met up. Sinead was good and this remains the only time I’ve deliberately missed a game for anyone else that I can remember!!
Chelsea won 3-2 and got all the way to the semi finals.
I guess the League Cup being mainly midweek is always going to put missing a game more at risk, particularly away. So here we are again in 1992/93 with Chelsea away at Everton this time in the 4th round. Turned out quite a taxing day. In the morning I’ve an appointment first thing as Chair of our Residents Association with the accountant for the managing agents. So off to New Malden with the RA secretary and the meeting goes fairly well. Walking back to the station she collapses in the street in some sort of fit. Luckily a shopkeeper comes out and seems to know something about what to do apart from calling an ambulance. I go with her to the hospital and they check her out but want to keep her in to make sure. No one from the minute it happened on would believe me that I knew nothing about her condition. She has no recollection of the collapse and is quite blasé about the whole thing. I decide I can safely leave but won’t be going intro work now as I have a football special train to catch. I get to Euston in time and meet a couple of mates who are going and everything is fine apart from going the long route via Birmingham. After Wolverhampton we turn to go up towards Stafford and rejoin the main line and then break down in absolutely the worst place as it is in the middle of nowhere. Black Country is an apt description. We sit there for ages and ages with no information until a diesel unit turns up to give us a pull. It takes us north and everyone is trying to work out when we will get there when we arrive at Crewe and stop. We are now told they’ve only taken us this far to change crew and take us back to London! The optimists rush out of the station to the taxi rank but slope back down again when the taxi drivers tell them they might make it to Goodison for the last 15 minutes. We then sit in Crewe station for about an hour before going south just as the game is starting. The game is drawn, 2-2.
As the 90s progress and the Taylor report kicks in things begin to change. For some reason the three main clubs in the northeast all get an extension given to them to complete the eradication of terracing. So Newcastle decide not to give us any tickets for the game on Easter Monday. They did this for all their last eight home games. I must admit at the time there was a lot of talk of some clubs stopping away ticket allocations and I fully expected this to be the first of many. I ask good old Ron Hockings if he’ll be able to get any tickets and he apologises and says loads of people have asked him already and he just doesn’t know. With the distance and being a Bank Holiday we decide not to go ticket less to Newcastle. My brother is married to a Geordie and her mum kindly says she will see what she can do. Newcastle put the last few hundred tickets on public sale early one morning, maximum of 2 each. She went and queued up for her son and me but unfortunately there were just not enough to go round.
We drew 0-0 and I listened during the afternoon on the radio somewhere in East Anglia. Of course I find out later that Ron had a couple of spares on the day!
Strangely Newcastle United managed to be involved in 4 of the games above!
Coming soon missed kick offs, breakdown and Italian tommy guns!
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