A spiritual reprise

2020-03-14

Some years ago I wrote an article for a Chelsea website I was once heavily involved in, CFCnet. It was written after I’d taken my father to his first game at Stamford Bridge in many years, and originally entitled ‘A Spiritual Return’. Recently, while listening to the Chelsea Fancast podcast - episode #495 ‘Mersey Beaten’ - during which one listener, as a guest of Hyundai, described what it’s like to have several generations of family members at a game, it reminded me of some of the reasons I love football, so I thought it was time to revisit the piece and try to bring it up to date.

In my deep and considerably murky past there is a memory, in which I am being lifted bodily above rows of men shouting, “go on son, get down the front there.” This was indeed me, as a child, having been taken to my first football match at Stamford Bridge by my father.

It would have been over fifty years ago now, but I’m not known for having the best of memories, so I won’t wax lyrical about the score, or indeed the players on that day, some of whom would become childhood heroes of mine. I do remember a couple of other things about that day: how green the pitch was, and how much I wanted to get back there as soon as possible. I don’t even remember the football, but the raw emotion, the excitement, and the noise, stick with you forever.

I really miss that sort of atmosphere at football. Anybody who went to matches back then will tell you it’s not the same these days, simply because it can’t be. Football has been sanitised, often in the name of safety, which in itself isn’t a bad thing, but other reasons contribute to what many would say is the demise of football as a social event for many folk.

Gone are the terrifying but ultimately exhilarating moments when we score and you are swept forward down the terraces, and although it doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny it feels as though there were a lot more people at Chelsea matches back in the day than there are now.

Some things, however, don’t change down the years. The camaraderie is still there, the nods and smiles on the Underground as we make our way to the ground, the playful banter with folks who’d rather be going to the match but end up going shopping with their families, the occasional disapproving glances from the few who still associate football fans with the mindless thuggery that blighted the sport decades ago. All these things go to make up the experience of going to a football match on a Saturday afternoon.

Given the inexorable rise of televised and streamed football, it is still, at the moment at least, a social event. Even the time-poor among us try to take the time to get to one of our favourite pubs before a game, and even if I haven’t made arrangements to meet someone for a pint, I’m bound to bump into someone I know. It’s impossible not to notice the groups of people at the pubs and bars on the way to the ground, because football, even now¹ is still very much a social event, and long may it be so. Without that, one wonders what the experience would be like. I’m sure Joe Cava, who talked about having three generations of his family at the game in the aforementioned Chelsea Fancast, would have something to say about that.

There’s a lot of Chelsea in my family down the years, too. My dad, his father before him, uncles, cousins, my sister and her two boys. All Chelsea. Dad passed a couple of years back and was part of a generation of people who thought the mindless hooliganism that pervaded the sport we loved back in the day just wasn’t football, so he stopped going and never went back. We all go through periods of not going to football for whatever reason, but most of us never stop loving the game, or the club.

Back in 2004² I asked my father if he’d like to go to a game. He chose the Newcastle home league game, so for the first time in more years than he could remember I took him back to Stamford Bridge for a spiritual return. It is him I have to thank for my love of all things Chelsea Football Club. He is responsible for what on occasion has bordered on an unhealthy obsession, and I am thankful, because there is something special about Chelsea fans.

We’ve lived through the worst times in support of our club; through debt, despair, relegation, promotion, joy, and elation, all in the name of supporting the club we love. In his dotage my old man was not such an avid supporter of the club, but we often chatted about it, and he followed the club when he could.

I don’t think dad could have picked a better game. By modern day standards the atmosphere was awesome, the ground was filled more than at any other time that season, and we stuffed the Geordies in a display of football excellence on the pitch and from the touchline. We had beers, we had dodgy burgers, and we had the craic. My old man was beaming, and that makes it all the better.

There’s more to this story, though. Fifty years of working in the building trade had left my old man ravaged by arthritis, so he had crutches. We made it to our seats in Shed Upper, but of course he wasn’t jumping up and down with the rest of us as the goals rattled in. A young lad sat in front of us noticed dad was on sticks. Every time we got close to goal he moved to the side so my father never missed a single goal from his sitting position. That’s the extended Chelsea family, and writing this now has the hairs on the back of my neck standing up just thinking about it. I’ll never forget those moments. I don’t know if it gets any better than that, because it goes well beyond how many trophies we’ve won, and always will.

I don’t even remember if that game I was taken to as a child by my father was my first football match, but it doesn’t matter. The affair started then and continues now after decades. I’ve been lucky enough to take my nephews to games, and I’ve taken the kids of friends who aren’t Chelsea fans, but now are, and I’ve taken lifelong supporters of other teams to games.

Paying it forward is great, but sometimes paying it back and giving thanks for what we have now is even better, and when it comes to all things Chelsea, I live by something my father once said to me: never let the football spoil the day.

Take someone you care about to football, better still take them to a Chelsea match, any match, because football is about more than watching blokes kicking a ball about, and you never know when you’ll no longer be able to share those memories with someone you love. Do it soon, I promise you it will make the experience all the better, and the memories will linger longer.

Carefree!

1. At the time of writing, the world is in the grips of a Coronavirus pandemic. Football matches and other sporting events around the world are being postponed or at the very least played behind closed doors. ↩

2. The date on the linked CFCnet article is November 2008, but I don’t think that’s right. I have my original copy marked as December 2004, which makes more sense. I’ll update this if I ever get to the bottom of it. ↩