OnePeterOsgood

Some names there that I had forgotten - we signed Bobby Evans towards the end of his distinguished career for Celtic and Scotland. We signed Johnny Brooks from Tottenham in the deal that too Les Allen to Spurs, and Sylvan Anderson came from Reading and was quite a decent player. I don’t remember much about Charlie Livesley and I have previously mentioned Reg Matthews on this forum - the man who made other goalies look sane!

I think there was one in Hendon on the site of what now is the Brent Cross shopping centre.

Good point, but who on earth is going to going to buy Disasi Tosin Bada and Fofana?

Totally agree - worst half I can remember in over 60 years of support …

I looked up a list of players signed by us since these two took over recruitment. Out of a very, very long list I would say that only Palmer, Caicedo and J Pedro have been (qualified) successes … check it out and see what you think!

I suppose the one big disadvantage of not being in the CL next season is that we won’t be able to attract quality players like Garnacho, Gittens, Delap and Bunonotte!

Yes, it was just a friendly to mark the opening of the floodlights. I thought it was 3-0 so I was close! I love the wording ‘Fooodlight Match’ on the front of the program! Before then, matches in winter usually started at about 2.15 so they could finish before it got dark!

Sorry, mate, I was in the “posh seats!”

The match to celebrate the new floodlights took place on my 9th birthday, March 19, 1957. Although it was a school night I was allowed to go … you couldn’t really have stopped me! An evening match against …. foreigners! Whatever next? The opposition was Sparta Prague and I think we won 3-0?

I also remember going to an away match at West Ham as a child and sitting on my own amongst all the WH fans .. yes really! I did have mates of course but they were all Tottenham supporters so I was often on my own at matches … getting to the Bridge was not a problem but how did I get to Upton Park? Anyway, the game was only memorable because of the really toxic atmosphere made even worse when one of our players clattered into their star player, Phil Woosnam, who had to go off injured … remember this was in the days before any subs. But after an absence of maybe 10 minutes Woosnam emerged from the dressing room and took up his position on the field … cue absolute bedlam with the most visceral and hate-filled noise from a football stadium that I’d ever heard mixed with unbelievable delight that he had returned. Funnily enough I remember feeling quite shaken by the scale of it but never frightened or vulnerable... It just wasn’t like that in those days …. no one had a dig at me or said anything really … today??

The first away match I ever attended was a cup game at Leyton Orient in about 1958 when I was 10. We played in red and I couldn’t understand why we were getting booed all the time, particularly at corners … I think we won 2-0.

Whilst dreading what’s going to happen to us when ‘proper’ football resumes, my thoughts returned to better times and my all time hero, the one and only Peter Osgood who took over the mantle from the previous incumbent, Frank Blunstone. Of course, , there has been competition along the way, mainly from Zola and Hazard, but Ossie keeps the crown as far as I’m concerned. Back in the day, we had an outstanding youth development programme, matched only by Man U who also produced multiple stars of the game. The matchday programme was always full of the successful exploits of our young stars so we kind of knew them well before they broke into the first team. Of course, many didn’t make the grade … in particular I remember two who were outstanding goal scorers for the youth and reserve teams and of whom great things were expected … Colin Shaw and Barry Smart, the latter I think, once scoring 7 or 8 goals in one game! I believe Colin did play a few games for the first team, but without much success, but I can’t recall Barry ever making an appearance. I only mention this because we didn’t know anything about Ossie until he appeared … fully formed and ready to go! I can’t remember any anticipation or advance warning … he just started playing! In that breakthrough season he was something else and we were all in awe of what we saw and excited about what he was going to help produce for the team. He had it all - touch, skill, trickery, an eye for goal, awareness of the game and, of course, a more than passing acquaintance with the dark arts! (I think Jack Charlton would vouch for that!). He never had great pace, and certainly not after he broke his leg at Blackpool, courtesy of Emlyn Hughes. Only a week or so before that fatal match, he scored away to Man C and celebrated by taunting the home City fans with double-handed V-signs. Fans of other teams considered the broken leg to be the appropriate karma for this hostile behaviour. I remember the morning after the Blackpool match spotting a headline on the back page of someone’s newspaper - “Osgood Breaks Leg” … it was the worst headline for a Chelsea fan since -“ Greaves Wants a Transfer”. I had the honour of meeting Ossie many years later … a long time after he stopped playing. Somehow one of our mates managed to get hold of the great man, or his ‘people’ and arranged for him to do a birthday greeting on video for another mate of ours, all Chelsea fans. The ‘shoot’ was arranged for a matchday at the Bridge at the time when Ossie was doing some hospitality work for the club. Although I was a father with kids of my own by this time I was still really excited and nervous to finally meet him, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist telling him how much he had meant to me growing up. We met on the concourse and he asked us if we’d like to do the filming on the pitch … would we??? So Ossie goes up to some sort of official and asks him if we can go on to the pitch … Peter Osgood, the king of Stamford Bridge having to ask permission from some jobsworth to set foot on the pitch that he graced for so many years! I was mortified! Anyway, we do the interview… Ossie is great - “Hi, Keith, happy 40th. I hear you were a tough centre-half in your day …pleased I didn’t have to play against you …” all the stuff you’d expect, and the he ends up with this - “Some one asked me the other day how my Chelsea team would get on against the current team, and I told him we’d probably lose about 3-0 … really, said this bloke, why do you say that? Well, says Ossie, we are all over 50!” Any other Ossie memories out there?

In last night’s England team were Tomori, Livramento, Madueke, Solanke, Hall plus Guehi in the squad … not good enough for Chelsea but good enough for England? Not sure if this reflects worse on our transfer policy or the standard needed to play for England in 2026!

…. of more benefit to the team when he was injured!

That Dewsbury-Hall fella looked good … why don’t we buy him? 🤔