The Swan

Are you a member of the Chelsea West Midlands Supporters Club? Thanks for the Welcome. Yes, you are not too far from me.

Cheers mate

Thanks for the welcome, be careful what you wish for

I am based in the Solihull area of the West Midlands and have only just discovered there is a West Midlands Chelsea supporters club which I have thankfully joined. They appear a good bunch and dedicated to following the Blues. I used to watch Chelsea a lot in the 80s and quite a bit in the 19990s. If I am honest I stopped going for a while when the new ownership kicked in from 2003 onwards. In the 80s I was part of a small group that travelled up from Oxford for games. Chelsea were not that good at the time. We tried to get a supporter’s club up and running in Oxford at the time (I say we when I was just a kid) and I had the pleasure of meeting Micky Droy and Joey Jones at the Swan pub in Cowley, Oxford. They were both top blokes, having a few pints and Micky was an avid smoker. I never saw him quite in the same light again, but he remained one of the players I admired. No one could dispute the passion that Jones showed when playing for Chelsea. In recent years I have started watching Chelsea again and started taking my youngest who is a big Chelsea fan. I have a great memories of following Chelsea as a youngster. My most mental was West Ham away in 1981. What was I thinking going to that one? Pitch invasions, OB going nuts and West Ham angry that Chelsea had tried to take their end. I was also at Derby in 1983 when they scored late on and Chelsea smashed up the seats. Football had to change and so did Chelsea and whilst I have been guilty of feeling nostalgic for the past, things have changed for the better. We played Crystal Palace recently and it made me think of the early 80s when I attended a game at the Bridge against them, 0-0 and 15,000 present. The trouble at games put so many people off and was killing the game. That said, I hope that Chelsea as a club remain close to its fans because we might not always be as good as we are now and have been.