MelbourneBlue

Had quite a few Essex Chelsea mates - Laindon, Benfleet, Upminster. Not sure where all of them came from, but knew about 6 or 7 blokes all up. Taff had it in for one bod from Chelmsford IIRC.

I remember the whole of the Park Lane chanting "Judas where are ya" at the Durie game. Never showed! My mates had season tickets in the East Upper for a while and there was a bloke who used to have it in for Kerry Dixon. Remember us all p*ssing himself as he stood up and gave the w*nker sign when King Kerry missed a decent chance once.

Stayed with a mate (CFC) in Merton last time I was back in London. All I saw was kids with Chelsea scarfs going to school or vans with Chelsea stickers. Not one other club was reresented.

I was wearing all that casual clobber 82-84, and now doing so again. Before that Lonsdale and green flying jacket. The two Melbourne teams here have a load of casuals as do other teams in Australia I believe. I don't hang around with them due to my advanced age.

A memory came floating back to me the other day. Forest away mid 80s, night game, we were given all the lower tier seats on the side opposite the cameras instead of the usual away terrace. We were held back a long time after the game, but when we came out a whole load of us tried to get out on the Trent End side of the stand and there was one copper holding the gate. SR then adopted a Geordie accent and continually told the copper "We're Newcastle" until he relented and let us out.....that is those who weren't pissing themselves laughing. Over the bridge and suddenly there's another mob in sight 100 yards away in the darkness. Speed up and just as the regular pre-row noises commence, I spot a well known bod from Wembley and others recognise a few faces and it turns out they're all Chelsea. Disappointment all round

In the late 80s, someone quite close to me redecorated the toilets outside Barcas trophy room with Chelsea graffiti. This person feels a right prat now. And if any Catalan OB are reading this, I never went to Barcelona, never went to the Camp Nou and never went near the trophy room.

Great information all this. I never knew about this tour. Dennis Brown is the same name as a popular Reggae singer who had money in his pocket but just couldn't get no love .

82-86 for me. Great away days, almost relegated to Div 3, then we finally started playing some decent football.

Didn't he get sent off at Carlisle in his first away match...........................and received a standing ovation from our chaps in the seats?

Charlie Cooke came and met the Melbourne CFC fans recently and was asked about his ridiculously small number of caps. Said the SFA was Old Firm dominated. Also he had a black mark against him from a drinking incident which was low level at the time considering what some players of the day were up to.

From memory that was the day our game at West Ham was postponed and many of us had headed off there before being turned back. I went in the North Bank when they opened the gates near the end, ran into a couple of north London Chelsea and they told me what had happened in the Clock End. Reading The Herd board a couple of years ago, they reckon the gooners outside knew some of the CFC and were egging them on to go in the Clock End. The OB didn't know what to do and made a poor decision to let them in there ;).

Couple of good write ups from Bolton lads: http://www.wanderersways.com/forum/topic/77873-30-years-ago-this-week-clive-walker/ "Their fans made up around 2500 and of the 8500 gate - though few of them were in the Embankment away section. The match was basically played against a backdrop of one long riot. I was sitting in the last block of seats in the Manny Road North, which Chelsea fans invaded with all sorts of trouble ensuing. They also invaded the Burnden stand with seats being ripped out and hurled in to the paddock. Bolton fans ended up occupying the bottom rather than the top half of the terrace though many of those seats were chucked back. It was a dour game played in pissing rain and cloying Burnden mud. Clive Walker, who always scored against Bolton, got the winner with a spectacular volley very late in the game and it meant Bolton needed to win the following week at Charlton to stay up, we didn't. Chelsea did stay up and never looked back with the likes of Kerry Dixon and Pat Nevin arriving soon after to lift them to the top division. Can remember the Chelsea fans singing "one man went to mow a meadow" all the way through the game, which Bolton fans then adopted and used for the remainder of the 80s. Thirty years ago this week - anyone else have powerful memories of this day?" 2500, NONEOF YOU NORTHERN FKRS CAN COUNT I SEE "Chelsea didn't exactly invade the Burnden Stand, that implies going in the away section and breaking the police line into the home section. Several hundred Chelsea fans paid at the gate of the home section of the Burnden Stand and there were so many of them the police didn't have the resources to move them.Leeds had done the same a few weeks before.Leeds were bullying Bolton families and pensioners but there was none of that with Chelsea.They were only interested in battling with Bolton's lads in the Paddock. I can't remember much of the game but being in the Burnden Stand surrounded by Chelsea was an experience.It wasn't scary, they only wanted to scrap with Bolton fans who were up for it although it did cross our minds that it might not be advisable to celebrate if we scored.There were far more Chelsea fans than Bolton in the Burnden Stand". GOOD TO SEE CFC DIDN'T SINK TO LEEDS LEVEL "really naughty atmosphere that day,moody as hell. there was trouble before and after all the way up manchester road. Bolton seemed to hold their after the match especially on Bradshwgate,where loads had mobbed up" YEAH RIGHT

The figure I used to hear bandied about in the 80s was that we had 4,000 or just under and the Goons and 4x2s had around 10,000. As for the low attendences that downthefront brings up, I can see your point, but I am talking about the entire 125 year span of professional football or however long. I was in two crowds of 6,000 in the same season once, and I know our home attendances dropped off at times, but we used to get massive corwds after the war when we had won nothing in our history. London is a competitive market, and football crowds reached a low in the 80s, so you can see how our crowds were pitiful at times given that we went down to Div 2 on 3 ocasions. Anyway, I remember the Spuds having a 16,000 crowd in the old Div 1, and one opening day, in the early 90s we got 28,000 and the Gooners got 24,000. You need to look at the whole picture then judge us IMO.

View the video of David Lacey of the Guardian saying we had the 3rd biggest away support in the country behind the two red giants....that was when we were in Div 2! Also if anyone with any sort of statistical skill could look at that home crowds per season data, and combine that with trophies won up to 1955, up to 1970 etc. we would turn out to have statistically the loyalest fans ever of all the medium and big clubs in the country. Our home crowds are the 5th biggest in the history of the English game, not far behind the two North London teams who for much of their historys have won far more than us. But we have history too, the first English club to qualify for Europe, completing the set of domestic trophies well before Liverpool, winning a European trophy before them too, winning the full set of European trophies before any English club.....in fact being the only one to do so ever. The facts show that we have a right to claim to be the greatest club in England. Not that I give a stuff about all the trophies,

Saw it on Cathy's fb, nobody has been able to identify the game, can anyone on here work it out? Best comment so far is "Judging by the away support it looks like QPR"

Didn't know about his role in the Saunders/Elliott court case, but most of us hated him because he was our captain then he left us for what he thought was a bigger club. Frontrunner and scumbag in my book.

I went to that game against Vitoria Zhizkov (spelling) I think. From memory the goalie went walkabout and Rocky scored with a lob before the keeper could get back onto his line. It was down the end where the temporary Shed End seats were. My mate had him and Ian Wright in his cab once, Wright was, as you'd expect, on very good terms with himself, while Rocky was an absolute gentleman.

Just go on our Melbourne CFC facebook sites for info about meet ups. There's 2 sites, one for those who support Chelsea, and another for those CFC who are active and turn up to functions. If you can play football we have a side entered at futsal in South Oakleigh on Sunday nights and another at Footscray on Wednesday nights. We also have a kick around some Sundays and I think we are playing West Ham in a couple of weeks. Was spicy last time, and we won the fight and the match , But all friendly now.....I think.

Right first of all there were about 25 of us in the pub, 20 of who stood at the bar all night. Maybe you were too p*ssed to notice. Yes there were 100 or so Spuds there. Some of you were intent on filling us in, but this didn't happened becasue you lot celebrated in the end and we dispersed. Thereafter, we started to get Melbourne Chelsea organised and the next time we played we outnumbered the Spuds. One of your leaders even wrote on your website "for the first time in years we were outnumbered by the Blue scum" That happened most times after that and then we both left the Dickens and moved our HQs to different pubs. On at least 2 occasions that Spurs have outnumbered Chelsea in Melbourne venues, or one of ours has been in your pub with his Spurs mate, a CFC bloke has been threatened. We don't do this when we have the numbers like for the 5-1 semi where we both had to watch in the Dickens. Some of your members use the OZspurs website to slag us off. One of them is an SBS reporter who called us c*nts on that website. That bloke has had a couple of opportunities to do that to my face and has not done so. But his words stir up the hatred which results in CFC being threatened if they walk into your pub. So a few of us, all chaps, went into your pub the Imperial the other day before the Spurs Chelsea match was shown. We made ourselves known, asked around for the reporter, then left in time to get ot our pub to watch the game. Nobody laid a finger on us, let alone even looked us in the eye once they knew we were there. Bunch of cowards Melbourne Spurs. Pick on the bloke alone but not a group of former North Stand types. We don't really want to bring former hatreds to Oz with us. We get on well with Melbourne Arse and even attend functions with them. They hate CFC but they are decent enough fellas. Same with Celtic actually. We even had 2 tables at their anti-cancer function in memory of Tommy Burns, which is 2 more tables than any other English supporters club here.

By the way I saw on fb that SH survived the Phillipines typhoon and is in good spirits.

Definitely not calling you a liar, just realising how lucky I was to arrive at New Cross station probably around kick off time and miss the puishment. 1990 was very different though, not at all frightening.

DM (Arsenal) lived on the Caledonian Road or near it. His next door neighbour who I knew to speak to was Chelsea.

Have to say my recollection of the night Isaac got stabbed is very different to that. Got there late because of working late. No trouble walking from New X, thought our following was fairly good for a night league cup game (3,000?) all the faces, don't remember bottles being flung at us. Think the OB walked us back to South Bermondsey and there was no incidents. The next time I went was our first year back up late in season 89/90 a hot day in April/May, and we walked around their manor with ease. A big mob of Chelsea walked down from the Elephant, and Millwalls attempts to attack this firm were poor to say the least.

More than that from memory. Plenty of northern CFC. I think a lot of fans got their tickets off the players. I sat next to Dennis Rofe and we hugged when we scored.