SilverPolish

To Blues of a certain vintage, Dave Sexton was a huge figure. Winning those cups meant so much, and he was the man that did it. He will always be a legend at Chelsea. RIP.

I was at the 13-0 Cup Winners Cup game at the Bridge in 1971, and one of their centre-backs wore glasses. I'm pretty sure that's the only occasion I've seen a bespectacled player in a Chelsea match. Mind you, their left back only had one arm, and I am absolutely sure he is the only uni-dexter player I've ever seen. With all this focus on what words can and cannot be said on a football pitch, I bet the FA are greatly relieved that Stephan Kuntz has retired.

While this is good new for us Chelsea fans, could we please spare a moment to commiserate with our less fortunate Arsenal brethren. They have to pay the highest ticket prices in the world, see their best player sold every summer and are saddled with an increasingly bonkers manager who is convinced that coming third in the League wins you a trophy. Despite these travails, at least they could hold their heads high by being financially pure, a model of honourable business practise unlike sugar-daddy bankrolled Chel$ki who had bought their success and were therefore killing football and would cease to exist once financial fair play regulations came into play. Now however, they have cruelly had that fantasy taken away and will have to accept that London's first Champions League winners are indeed the capital's top club. So commiserations Gooners, our hearts go out to you at this difficult time, and at least you can console yourselves next time you visit Ashburton that the £14 you just paid for your fish and chips has made the bloke that owns Walmart just that little bit richer.

Proper football team, keeps going right to the end. We do still need a result in Turin though, if Juve and Shaktar both win in the next round, then draw with each other in the final game we are out.

I voted no because, like many I'm sure, signed up on an impulse when reading through a recent thread. A two-day wait and the moment would have passed. The solution to the op's concern is actually is quite simple. Internet rule number one - don't feed the trolls!

The even bigger question: Will Rio shake Clattenburg's hand? Another national crisis in the making!

Understandably there is a lot of emotion here, but let's not get carried away. Firstly, we know that the club have reported Clattenburg for "inappropriate comments", but we don't know what those comments were and I would not pay any attention to what's appearing in the twittersphere. Chelsea have to be careful here, they will want to play this absolutely by the book so would not want anything leaked. If it's on twitter, it's speculation and nothing more. As to his performance. Perhaps I am being naive, after all a German ref was jailed for corruption not so long ago, but I don't think anything that blatant happens in the PL. But I do think perhaps we saw an effect of the relentless war of intimidation Ferguson has waged against refs for many years. The FA have been feeble and let him get away with this, but from the running up and down the touchline pointing to has watch onwards, Ferguson has persistently, and often completely unjustifiably, attacked refs. This must have an effect on them, even if only subconsciously. In those split second moments making key decisions, the prospect of getting lambasted by Ferg must affect a ref's judgement. I am not suggesting they are bent, or even that they are biased, but that Ferguson has instilled fear into them so they subconsciously avoid giving decisions that they know will enrage him. Refs have to be thick-skinned, but they are human and vulnerable to psychological pressures and Ferguson knows that and has exploited it. His record as manager is phenomenal, but the cynical and calculated way he has intimidated refs over the years is a giant stain on his achievements in my book.

What the media should stand for and what the media does stand for are two very different things. It becomes a question of having to deal with the fundamental wrongness of the reality.

I certainly don't blame Abramovich for not exposing himself to the madness of the press pack, but all the more reason for him to have made a definitive public declaration of intent. This could have been made under his control - Chelsea TV for example - and it would have provided a framework for subsequent speculations about him. By saying nothing at all he has allowed the space for more lurid memes to become established. At risk of trading stereotypes, aren't Russians supposed to be good at intrigue? The media is there to be won over, let's not call it corruption, instead call it a mutually beneficial re-alignment of interests. Boycott the media? Well firstly there are contractual obligations which apply, even if you are Fergie. Also, there will be clauses in all contracts with sponsors about media exposure. These things are very closely monitored, the more mentions that Samsung say, get from their association with Chelsea the higher the rewards the club gets. Boycotting the media would be an exercise in self harm. No, the answer is to win them over, by any means necessary. I seriously hope there is a policy in place for this. Perhaps the post-JT Chelsea world would be the time to launch it.

This is great! I was at that game, which took place on my birthday. There was quite a few of us who went in those days, and everyone bought me a pint. I think I drank between ten and twelve pints of Guiness before the game. Anyway, I got as far as Langley's goal - 1-3 - then passed out! One of the greatest comebacks in our history I was out sparko in the West Stand as everyone went nuts around me. So I learned an imporant lesson that day. Don't get so drunk pre-match that you pass out before the game is over because you mght miss something!

Think co-efficients.

On a Mac I can just drag them onto the desktop. Great pics though! I love the East Stand 1920-21 taken from the south. That must be smoke drifting up - 70,000 men, all wearing flat caps and all smoking a woodbine!

Rio and Anton Ferdinand reach out to Ashley Cole and John Terry http://www.guardian....cole-handshakes Nobel Peace Prize for Rio?

Helicopter enthusiast?

Nice piece, but you omitted where I, and many others, first met Ron. He used to run the old supporters club which had a shop opposite the North Stand entrance. Up a pair of rickety wooden stairs at the back and you would hand over your one pound fifty or whatever to him for the coach to Ipswich. There weren't always football specials in the early 70s, and a lot of my early out of London games were on his coaches. He certainly was extaordinarily dedicated. I thnk my favourte story of his was about going away to Newcastle by in the 1950s. No motorways of course, so they had to leave on Thursday evening to make the Saturday kick-off!

Having been top of the co-effcients for years, England has now slipped below Spain, but are still well clear of Germany in fourth. You can see the rankings here: http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/method4/crank2013.html English clubs faffing about in the Europa League has hurt us.

One thing Abamovich has not done well in his time at the club is handle the media. His first press bloke was that idiot Goldberg from News of the World who was just rubbish. Then we had Peter Kenyon, corporate schmoozer par excellence though he may have been, every time he opened his mouth in public a kitten died in heaven. Abramovich's complete silence doesn't help either, it allows the media to just make stuff up. I'm surprised that such an astute man as Roman undoubtedly is hasn't realised the value of getting the media on your side. There's a formula for this. Get some smoothy in who takes journos out to expensive lunches, butter them up a bit, grease a few palms etc. Public image, or 'brand' as we have to call it nowadays does matter. Not only does it make the club more atractive to potential sponsors thus increasng revenues, but 'nice' clubs tend to get more favourable treatment from the UEFAs of this world. As cartel-busters we were never going to be popular with the cartel, but I do think we could have improved things somewhat if we'd played the media game a bit more skilfully.

Well you could certainly understand JT being a bit cheesed off with the perpetual witch-hunt he has to put up with in this country. Ashley Cole likewise. Another apect is that although the senior management at the club have stuck by JT admirably through this latest tragi-farce, I can imagine a few sponsors might be getting a bit twitchy. A post-JT Chelsea would be that bit more marketable.

Just now from the BBC: Anton and Rio are "disappointed". The world is such a cruel place is it not.

Well we know, from the FA saying nothing about it to Ferdinand, that it is perfectly okay for a player to call another a 'f*cking c*nt' on a football pitch. Ferdinand admitted he had said that, the FA gave him no sanction, or even reprimand, thereby setting a precedent. Does this mean that the FA is sexist? Using a word referring to an exclusively female organ as a means of insult is sexist isn't it? How about 'ginger c*nt'? Is it okay to mention a person's Celtic ancestry when abusing them? Also, what adjective could someone use to 'racially abuse' a white person? Does such an adjective exist? White? Honky? Or is it the case that you cannot racially insult a white person ergo only white people can be racist? I've said before, this whole nonsense-blown-up-into-a-major-incident is part of a wider agenda in social engineering, one objective of which is to cause conflict and division. The idea of a black players group plays into those hands perfectly, creating an artificial division. What Roberts' agenda is who knows, I suspect no more than setting himself for a post-playing career as a professional victim. If you want to look at racism in Britain, look at the police force, look at the prison population, look at City boardrooms, look at Public schools, look at western economic policy towards Africa. Instead we are presented with the official hate Figure John Terry. It's all b*ll*x isn't it?

At least they won't be able to call it Colegate because that would sound lke toothpaste and confuse people.

Well on the BBC football site there are the following stories: 1) Black footblers' group possible 2) Calls for racism summit meeting 3) League cannot fund kick it out 4) Ferguson resolves Ferdinand issue 5) Terry to wear anti-racism armband 6) Racism hard to eradicate - Hughes Meanwhile on the BBC's Political Correctness and Mindless Tripe pages there's something about some football taking place tonight. It's not people obsessed with this, it's the relentless pushing of an agenda.

Okay. That was a spectacular day. We had hired a van to go up there, and upon arrival naturally enough headed for the home end, known as the 'Great' Lever End (good to see Boltonians have a sense of irony). There was about fifteen of us and we all got in no problem apart from one of my mates who had a rip in the back of his donkey jacket (oh come on, we all wore donkey jackets back then!) so plod spotted his blue shirt underneath and he got sent up the other end. There was probably about fifty Chelsea in there, all keeping in ones and twos, nodding discreetly when we saw each other. About twenty to three we gathered in the middle and Greenaway started up a 'Zigger Zagger'. Then we got to the 'Chelsea' bit and the whole end, which was pretty full by that stage, scattered in all directions. I don't know that a single punch was thrown, a bit of snarling (allied with the donkey jackets) was enough and they fled to all parts, even kicking open the gates to get out of the ground. This left us standing in this vast space giving it large and feeling very pleased with ourselves. Meanwhile, up the other end were about 5,000 comrades who were no doubt watching all this with glee. How I imagine it, conversations such as this must have broken out; "Oh look, there appears to be some fellow Chelsea fans standing in plenty of space up the other end." "Oh yes, so there is". "Why don't we take a stroll up there to join them?" "Yes, that sounds like a good idea". So the mass migration took place, and we filled their end for the entire match, singing loudly and from time to time reminding the locals that ideally we would not have been in that part of the ground at all. It all worked out well, because it was quite an important game promotion-wise, and from two down at half time we fought back to draw, all the goals being scored in our end. Unfortunately, our mate (he of the torn donkey jacket) didn't have such a good day. Somehow he ended up in the Bolton half of the away terrace and got a brick in his face for his troubles and had to spend a week in hospital as a consequence. Oh and I got bitten by a police dog, but that little scar on my thigh is a sort of souvenir of a fun Div Two day out. I think it was the same season when something very similar happened at Forest. The Trent End had a bit of a reputation at the time, but a hundred or so cleared it out and the rest of us who were in the away section on the half-way line jaunted across the pitch to join them. This was quite early, but so many of us were in there that plod made an executive decision and all arriving Chelsea were put in there with us. About 8,000 that day, noisily packing the Trent End out, great support, singing the 'We are evil' song throughout the match. Must have been great for our players and demoralising for theirs to see such a complete takeover like that. But you try telling the young people of today...

Like several here, I find it tough to split the two obvious ones. The 04/05 was so typically Chelsea. Wait till our fiftieth season to win the league, and do so with the lowest winning points total ever. Then wait till our hundredth birthday to win it again, this time with the highest winning points total ever. Then there's the nature of the CL win. 3-1 down to Napoli, team in disarray, caretaker manager quickly shuffled in. Messi averages over a goal a game for Barca, but that's twice more he hasn't scored against us! Then to beat a German team, on penalties, in their own stadium. Ridiculously improbable! It also take us into that elite club of winners, exalted status. So it has to go to a tie-break. The fact that the CL win was our eighteenth major trophy, taking us above T*ttenham on that list for the first time ever gets it my vote.

You marsupialist! I'm going to report you!