MelbourneBlue

Fantastic couple of days. Arrived from Melbourne in the morning and there were about 50 Chelsea on the flight, only two of them I'd ever seen before at various supporters functions. All the supporter groups met up at the Aurora pub in the city and many drank there til 5pm before walking the short distance to the main station to get the train to the ground. Why there was a police escort for this I will never know, As for fining one of the Melbourne lads $500 for carrying his beer into the station, do you want major events in Sydney or what? Surely a tap on the shoulder and a smile would have sufficed. The train ride from that lot was apparently sensational, and I'm sure a lot of the singing is on youtube by now given what I've seen on Facebook. I was already at the stadium and a very good fan zone had been set up with a brewery quite handily next to it. Chelsea I think had subsidised the program ($10 was very reasonable) and put the two trophies on display for free photos. Unfortunately the lack of a fee meant that it required queueing for 2 hours for your selfie with the silverware. We baliled out after an hour to go to the brewery. Into the ground early and Chelsea had supplied 15,000 free flags for the Chelsea end of the ground. We were to find out that there were in face 4 Chelsea sides to the ground with just a bay or two of Sydney fans at the far end. Behind our end the organisers had set up a marquee at the back called the 'Shed Bar' and it would have been rude not to spend the two hours til kick off in there. There were couches and heaters in there, so very hospitable. Only problem was a DJ pumping our mind-numbing techno music. I used to like this stuff, but time and place eh! With the train load of supporters groups still not there half an hour after opening, it was thought that a few chants might drive the DJ away and it worked for a little while. He started up again after 5 minutes, but fortunately soon after the reinforcements arrived and he just gave up and never played again. The 5 main supporters groups had 400 tickets in a bay behind the goal at the 'Shed End'. They all went into the stand itself about half an hour before kick off when the players warmed up. The game started and we basically created several good chances, with Remy firing in a rocket around the half hour mark. Apart from a double chance for Sydney soon after, with a great clearance by Ivan, it was mostly Chelsea until the frantic final minutes when we had mostly kids on and Sydney could have scored three times. I counted 9 good chances we had and was pretty satisfied with the perfromance. We hung around for an hour after and my lad got a couple of autographs. Well done to Ivan, Matic, Dave, Diego and the many junior players who came out to sign. A special mention to Eden who starred throughout, and really was worth the admission money alone. We had gone off the boil in the league in recent games but he realised that nearly 84,000 mostly Chelsea fans had come to watch him and the team on a rare visit, and he really busted a gut for us and turned on all his tricks. The next morning was a unfulfilled walk around town hoping to spot players, but I think they were on the way to the airport by then, so we headed for our flight too. Lots of great memories of the trip, and a big thank you to Chelsea and the head of the Sydney Chelsea Supporters Club for making it all happen.

83,598 crowd which was about 250 short of a record. Unbelievable stadium. I came up from Melbourne with a large number of our supporters club there. Great atmosphere in the pub before, on the train and in the Shed Bar round the back of the stand, but the acoustics in the ground did not make for a good football atmosphere. Nevertheless a fantastic day/night in Sydney and watching the players in the flesh for the first time for many people. The airport was chockers with Chelsea when I left lunchtime today.

If Winkle was still alive he would have filled several pages of this thread

Easter Monday from memory. Think Steve Francis was our unfortunate goalie.

Watford away once, three of us just walked in through the car park. Trains a couple of times. Wembley 1980, paid the gate man a tenner, then to get into the top level my WHam mate just passed his ticket through a gate to me.

There are major fan groups in all the main cities. Find them all on Facebook or at least Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. We will have around 100 at the pub in Melbourne at the Palace game Sunday for instance. The fan groups have got 250 tickets together for the big game, and there is a broader all Chelsea section in that end of the ground. That end will be officially called the Shed End for the night. Outside that end will be the Shed Bar which I think will begin filling up after 5pm. Before that the main supporter groups will be at the Aurora pub near Central Station from around at least 11am.

Flights from Melbourne and hotel room booked. Loads going up from Melbourne and Adelaide that I know. Heard a rumour they'd only sold 35,000 so far for the Spuds match 3 days earlier.

Have to agree with this. And I also reckon it was more than 45k. When Dixon scored you can see how many Chelsea were in the Lower East (where I was), but as you intimate we definitely didn't have more than them in the seats to make it a bigger Chelsea presence than them all up.

Canners is down here in Oz at the moment, cracking bloke.

Don't remember it either. I must have got in late that day. I remember us all chanting "Waterloo" from the West Stand and the OB then took them down to Wimbldon after.

I have a poor memory about some things, but I am 99.9% certain that Spurs did not have the West Stand seats that day.

I agree, I reckon it was chockers in there. Couldn't fault them.

That same Charlie Cooke is in Melbourne next week and a few of the Chelsea boys here are lucky enough to be going out to dinner with him Canners next month.....and last night I got about 5 yards from Ray Wilkins (the Jordan coach) who was being interviewed by Jordanian TV after their 5-1 win. Finally some Chelsea royalty making it down here.

Might have even been as low as 6000 and I reckon Rangers only had 1000 or so it being a few days later and midweek.

Big Union Jack in our end 'Tollcross Rangers' or something like that.