Chaos at Chelsea is nothing new... but club and Stamford Bridge are indivisible
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Published 04/06/2018 at 13:03 GMT
As weeks go, this has been an eventful one for Chelsea Football Club. But, as Dan Levene writes: when it comes to the Blues, the circus has always been in town.
Stamford Bridge
Image credit: PA Sport
'Chelsea may soon have no manager, no stadium, and no stars' – boasted The Mirror this last weekend. It's enough to drive a sub editor to Photoshop a crack through the club badge.
But, putting aside the quite legitimate point that the headline could equally apply to Spurs right now: as old hands will know – it has always been thus.
'Chelsea is a soap opera' is the claim of many who do this job.
And they are entirely right – a point which makes reporting on this club the very best job in football.
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General view inside the stadium prior to the Premier League match between Chelsea and Everton at Stamford Bridge on August 27, 2017 in London, England.
Image credit: Getty Images
The only mistake those sages make is in positing that the drama began in 2004.
This is a club that was founded upon a dog bite.
A stadium built on the subterranean grime farmed all the way from Bounds Green to Barons Court – London clay pushed through a hole in the ground no broader than a Piccadilly Line train, and heaped up in terracing by the Fulham Road.
This is the place where a record number of thousands climbed to the roof of the stands to view the Russians.
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Roman Abramovich
Image credit: Reuters
Where vultures of greed preyed upon the most valuable piece of green turf in London – a good 35 years before today's world record real estate values.
Where everybody seems to have a casual footballing acquaintance who speaks of the film star, or statesman, or rock 'n roller who they sat next to at a game.
(And, on the subject of statesmen: how many other sides have an FA Cup winner who went on to be a head of state?) In the last week we've seen the club's owner banned from the UK, seek economic asylum in Israel, and pull the plug (at least temporarily) on his new stadium plans.
We've seen a chaos where the club's existing manager is treading the slowest march towards the exit, while the apparently preferred incoming boss has seemingly been told to buy his way out of his own contract.
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Antonio Conte, Chelsea manager
Image credit: Getty Images
And we've seen a continual threat of deserting stars that never seems to end.
But, so much chaos is really nothing.
Managers come, managers go, Chelsea remains.
Stamford Bridge, a ramshackle conurbation of development to some; an embarrassment of last-century squalidity to others (if social media is to this week be believed); and a spiritual home to many more – is Chelsea.
And Chelsea: a club known for racists by some; while being castigated as the most diverse celebration of football in the world by others; is Stamford Bridge.
The two are indivisible.
If you know your history: you know that Chelsea FC was created for Stamford Bridge; and not the other way around. And those star-crossed lovers have plugged-on, through champagne and gruel, never to be divided.
One of the things that perpetuates that enduring romance is Chelsea Pitch Owners: ensuring that the Chelsea / Stamford Bridge link will remain. Forever.
Amid the enduring turmoil of Chelsea Football Club, it is emerging as the one constant: ironically conceived by much-maligned former owner Ken Bates - who this week flirted around the margins of blaming victims of racism for the wrongs to which they were exposed.
If ever there was a glint of gold amid the sewage, this was it.
And, all down the years for Chelsea, despite the odds against, the toast has tended to land the butter-side-up.
From chasing Cabra Estates from the door, to the gradual removal of the club from that far right 80s nadir (with a number of deeply regrettable set-backs), to the lifting of the European Cup – their town, their stadium, their cup (except all three were Chelsea's).
Stuff happens in football. And, if you've been paying enough attention, it often happens to Chelsea.
Because this club's weighty albatross is also its life source.
Chelsea will remain a circus for as long as the world's most expensive football pitch remains under its feet.
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Gianfranco Zola Chelsea 1996/1997 file photo all versions
Image credit: Imago
If Hudson and Nevin and Zola and Hazard looked liked they passed with divine intervention, it was surely because they were playing on a surface that was less green, and more gold.
And, thanks to those Chelsea Pitch Owners, that will be the case forever.
“Events, dear boy, events” as a Prime Minister once told a reporter, are what change the face of history.
Not at Chelsea. Here, they are what happens when the day ends in 'y'.
The French insist it is the terroir which makes the wine. In football, that is never more true than at Chelsea. And this terroir could not be firmer, or greener, or richer.
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