Cobham

Villa are another interesting case. Good crowds in the 20s and 30s and right after the war but never that good again after that apart from the mid to late 70s. What's interesting is that, despite their relative success in the early 80s (Div 1 winners in 1981 when they averaged 34k and then EC winners in 1982) they were averaging only 18k by 1985 and just 15k by 1986, only 4 years later. I think that goes to show that the malaise that football was in at that time outweighed any relative success clubs were having. Think again about our average during what I've called our 'bad' period and I think any impartial observer would have to say "not that bad".

Yep, I just get the feeling that they wouldn't have the 'small club', 'no fans', 'no history' stuff thrown at them even if they were in the Premier League. They weren't formed until 1921 when the former Leeds City were disbanded and only won their first trophy in 1968 (League Cup). I think there's something in where we're located and our supposed fan base that makes others look at us the way they do.

Since CB brought up the 'big club' index take a look at our old friends Dirty Leeds. I must admit it does get to me when oppo fans sing the "where were you when you were s**t" song and all the 'history' stuff. How is it that no one ever says that about Dirty? They won absolutely nothing until Revie came along, less even than us, and their attendances were poor. Compared to ours they were shocking. I don't know if this link will work but it should be Leeds' attendances since 1921: http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn.htm They got 13,259 in 1986 after 4 years in Div 2 and finishing in 14th place. How is that any different from the 13,132 we got in '82 in 12th place in our third year in Div 2 or the 12,672 we got in '83 after finishing 18th? They also got 13k averages in the 60s just before Revie showed up (admittedly in Div 2 but still...) and 13, 14 and 15k averages in the 1930s when they were in Div 1. That's shocking. There is simply no comparison between our crowds and theirs in any decade you care to look at. So what makes them immune to the jibes we get? Is it because they're from a northern working class town so are somehow more 'real'? Is it because we all remember when they were a great side from the mid 60s to mid 70s but no one remembers what they were like before?

I see Englishman has brought up a name that should be easier to decide on - David 'Slimy Odious C**t' Dein. I think we can all agree he's a total and utter villain? I'm not a violent man but after what he did to us in court I would happily lamp him if I was unfortunate enough to pass him in the street. Then, as he lay on the ground, he'd find me standing over him reminding him who was the first and only side from London to have won the European Cup.

I don't think anyone is saying that Bates outwitted anyone or cleverly 'won' the court battles to save us. At least I'm not. He got lucky, no doubt about it. He also made a major mistake (I believe, I will have to look this up) in not getting the freehold of the Bridge when he first bought the club. The point however is that he was there fighting when no one else was. Maybe one of us or someone else could have done it just as well and maybe could have done it with better grace. But no one else did. That's the point. The cold, hard history of the matter is that Bates did, whatever his motivation, whatever his style and whatever his luck. The rest is just ifs, ands and buts and coulda, shoulda, woulda. I can easily imagine some mythical better owner but I don't remember anyone showing the slightest bit of interest at the time. It's always better to deal in facts. While none of us can know what might have happened had Bates not been in control we can say what did happen. And what did happen was that he hung on in there and fought for us until eventually we won. Unfortunately we have to move into the realm of conjecture for me to say that I struggle to imagine anyone else fighting our corner that hard. But it isn't conjecture to say that he did. And for that alone I shall remain grateful.

"23 years. 23 trophyless years." Seems quite funny now. Not so much at the time.

Alan, good question on the choices in London. I think you could argue it both ways. On the one hand there are more than enough people in the London area that, arguably, almost all the London clubs ought to be getting crowds the size of Spurs/Arse. Manchester and Liverpool may only have two teams (if you ignore Tranmere, Stockport, etc.) but their populations are way smaller. On the other hand when things are not going well for one club In London there is plenty of other football to watch should you want to do so. As a Chelsea fan I might not want to go to Spurs, QPR or West Ham but I wouldn't have a problem going to Wall or Palace or Foolem (not saying I would or did but I wouldn't have any major problem doing so, whereas going to Spurs...!!!!!). Back in the day, when we weren't challenging them and I didn't mind them so much I once went to match at Arse as a neutral (well it was against the Dippers so I actually wanted L'Arse to win). Of course if you go and watch someone else because your team is doing badly that;s fickle isn't it? Then there is maybe the thing about one team towns like Leeds or Newcastle. I've always felt that they are more likely to pull people in simply because they are THE team of that town and as such fully represent them. Whether they are going through a good patch or a bad one the team is usually named after the city you live in and really means something to that community whereas we don't represent London. To choose to go to Chelsea when we were sh*t.. well that's bordering on the perverse. As you mentioned about the working class housing I've never felt that Chelsea had the support from the community that it should have. Look at what the Conservative councils did for us in the 80s. I would say we were almost unloved in our area most of the time.

Chelseaden did you work through those figures yourself (kudos if you did) or is it on a website somewhere? Got to admit I'm surprised since both of our north London neighbours have had some huge crowds over the years to be fair. To be anywhere near them is something I really think we should get credit for when you look at our limited success in comparison.

Good stats Englishman. I challenged a Gooner online about that attendance v Leeds and he claimed their fans were boycotting the game as a protest against their league position and their manager. Leaving aside the fact that that is about the epitome of the fickle, spoilt football fan to whom success is everything does anyone know if that is actually true? I think it's more likely that it was the last game of the season when they finished in comfortable mid table and they couldn't be arsed to turn up. Be nice to know the truth on that one. To be fair to the Dippers all those low attendances are against pretty poor quality oppo. Spurs, on the other hand, have no excuse.

I'll happily put myself down as another 'fan' of Batesy. Maybe fan is not the right word though. His politics and outlook on life and mine would likely be very different, if it wasn't for his CFC connection I wouldn't ever want to invite him over for a dinner party or chat with him in a pub. Be that as it may I prefer to deal in facts not 'might have beens'. Batesy fought the battle to save the club. No one else did. He might have done it for selfish reasons, he might have been the only one who could see the potential of the club in the early 80s and figured he could do well out of it in the long term. Frankly I don't really care. He was there when no one else was and he fought like the bar steward he was to keep the club going. Sure, a different owner with more money and a more likeable personality would have been nice. But there wasn't one. And that's a fact. Moving on to some conjecture. Had he not been our chairman/owner at that time, how many of you could see CFC existing in the way we knew it then and the way we know it now? Would we still be at the Bridge? Would we even be called Chelsea FC? Yes, that's conjecture, we don't know for certain who might have stepped in had Batesy not done so and they might have been more successful in saving us earlier and done it with a smile on their face and a great rapport with the media. But, again, what I know for a fact is that Batesy did the job and, all things considered, did it pretty well.

Here's one for the older fans. I forgot to put this in as a possible reason for lower attendances in the 80s but I don't even know if it's right so I'd be interested to hear what the oldies think. Is it true or possible that allegiance to football clubs (and possibly attendance with it) changed with the advent of regular football on television? What I mean is that after the mid 60s when MOTD and other progs like the Big Match started appearing on our screens did more people begin to support teams other than their local one? Did they start to support the successful ones more than they had previously when maybe it was more of a support your local team thing? What I was thinking was if, since you could now watch a team from anywhere in the country on the TV and be more involved in its fortunes, was that part of the reason why there were so many Dipper fans in Surrey and London in the 70s and 80s or was it like that before TV football? Were there more glory hunters around after TV football than before or was it just the same? Those Utd crowds that went up so obviously after 57/58 were they Manchester or Lancashire people or were they drawn from all over the country? If it's true, I don't think this would have helped us either. We seldom featured on MOTD for years when I was growing up.

Let's lift the doom and gloom for a minute and take note that Man Utd had lower attendances than us almost every year in those first fifty years of our existence. They beat us by about 1k in our first season (05/06) by 2k the next year and then nothing after that until three seasons in a row in 48,49 and 50 and then again in 52. Interestingly they were runners up in 47,48, 49 and 51 and won the league in 52. Glory hunters? Nope, not picking on Utd, it's just that success breed bigger crowds. Other than that period in the late 40s they were never even at the races. Most years they weren't even in the top 5 and often not the top 10. That all changes with the advent of the Busby Babes and then Munich. Before that, looking at attendances only, you wouldn't have called them a top 5 club whereas we were probably top 3 or 4. Now imagine what we would have been like had we actually won anything. Here's the evidence: http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn.htm

Probably my memory playing tricks but I would swear when I first started standing in the Shed it was about a quid or a quid fifty and going to the cinema was about 5 or 6 quid. Now it's 50 quid a game and the cinema costs about 8 to 10 pounds. One of those is not in line with inflation.

The Ugly If the first fifty years were very good and the next 20 were good then the late 70s to mid 80s can be seen as an aberration and not the norm (i.e. admittedly low crowds but for understandable reasons). What does that mean for the rest of our history? It would mean that the crowds we have now are not unusual as the "where were you when you were sh*t" brigade would have it. They are in fact what we've had for most of our history. Not the history that the "where were you when you were sh*t" mob would remember of course but that's their problem. We had 70 years of good crowds before the rot set in and it bears repeating that this was on the back of winning very, very little indeed. But how then do we explain the early 90s? A non recovery from all the stuff I wrote about in the last post? Maybe we have always been fickle and that 9,000 crowd against Coventry in 94 was not unusual if you look at our entire history. Instead it ties in with the 6,801 against Liverpool in 1938 and my Scouse opponent was right, we're fickle. I don't know if this fully explains everything and I'm looking forward to your input with your ideas but here's my own personal take on it that might explain some small part of it. I left the UK to go travelling in May 88. I missed the Boro play offs because I booked my tickets well ahead when we really didn't look like we'd be sucked into a relegation battle. I travelled on and off for pretty much the next 4 or 5 years, missing the promotion season and the couple after that. When I came back full time in 92 I started going to the Bridge again a bit but it was 'different' than before. One thing is that you get out of the habit of going (this is a very important point that I should have made more of in the previous post. Watching football is a habit that goes in cycles depending on a number of factors, certainly for me but I think also for many others). Secondly this wasn't my team any more. I worshipped at the feet of Pat and Speedie and Dixon and now we had Vinnie Jones and were managed by Porterfield! We has seemed an exciting club that had a team playing good football and now we work more... well... you know. Added to that, off the field the club seemed to have gone backwards if anything. There was a sense in 84-86 that we were on the rise again back to 'big club' status. When I returned to the Bridge it felt not just as if we had been treading water but it actually felt like we had gone downhill. Less of the ground was open, capacity was smaller, we still didn't own the ground, Save The Bridge was still operating, the players still trained at Harlington. Crowds hadn't really risen, they were OK but nothing special. There seemed to be no buzz about the place. In 85 I had started to believe we would win something again. Around 92-93 I remember resigning myself to the fact that I might never see us win a trophy in my lifetime. If that sounds ridiculous now look at the Geordies or Sunderland. I'm not saying that winning stuff is the be all and end all, far from it in fact. But what I am trying to say is that there was none of that air of excitement and expectancy that we had in the 80s for a bit. I felt quite despondent about our long terms chances and in some ways it felt worse than the crisis of 82-83. Long term I just couldn't see where the club was going. These kinds of feelings and that kind of atmosphere have a huge part to play in attendances. Look at the Geordies when Keegan came back. Positivity, the return of the Messiah and all that = instant increase in crowd size. I don't know if this helps explain Coventry in 94 because by then things were changing and we were on the up again but it may help explain a part of it. Going to Chelsea was not the habit for many of us that it might or should have been. The buzz wasn't there at home. You could turn up or not, usually make the decision at the last minute and have no problem getting in unless we were playing Man Utd or the Dippers. There wasn't much expectancy that anything exciting would happen at Chelsea and that you were missing being part of something great if you didn't go. That kind of habit takes time to start and time to break. We probably only ever had that for a few years in our history until about 96. I don't know, I'll be interested to hear what you lot think. I didn't go to that Coventry match even though I'd been at Wembley (though I honestly think I had a very good reason). Maybe I'm as fickle as the rest. Over to you to explain it. If it can be explained.

The Bad OK, so no one is going to claim our attendances were good in the early to mid 80s. You only have to think of that Orient attendance to realise you can’t make that case. However, I really do think you can make a case that, if not good, the attendances weren’t actually that bad. Not when you put them into the context of the times. My argument has always been that some of the fall in attendances was just natural for a club on the decline, some was due to a general decline in football attendances and some was due to other reasons. What I firmly believe is that through a combination of factors we lost an entire generation of fans during the mid 70s to early 90s. Here’s my reasoning: 1. The club was unsuccessful. Ain’t no club in the world that doesn’t lose fans when times are hard (over an extended period of time, one off seasons of fun in Div 2 like Man Utd had in the 70s don’t count, they were never truly in decline as a club and weren’t faced with the same problems we were): · 7 years out of 9 in Div 2 between 75 and 84 and another relegation in 88 (the only team ever relegated via the play-offs). · What was officially the worst team in league history when it got relegated with what was the lowest points total until that time in 1979 (my first season, lucky me). · Lowest league positions in our history in 82 then 83. · Some comically bad football e.g. the world’s worst goal drought in 81 and I once read we got ‘giantkilled’ 11 times in ten seasons (I’ll have to look that up). Really you had to be there to believe it. I mean we were the absolute masters of f**king it up when it should have been easy. In some ways it was quite funny. In others it really wasn’t. 2. The club was in near terminal decline: · We had bankruptcy and financial issues that few clubs have had to deal with. There was an air of despondency and despair around Chelsea back then that I think few today would appreciate. To me it felt like a club that was dying on its feet. · Add that to the ground. Don’t get me wrong I loved the Bridge as it was, it was home. BUT it was a also sh*thole of a ground and a dreadful place to watch football. Had we had a smaller, or not even smaller but more enclosed stadium, the atmosphere would have been better and it would have been a more enjoyable experience. Smaller crowds due to on pitch failure just made it worse. · This wasn’t helped by, what was it, three seasons of reconstruction on the East Stand? That gaping hole all along one side on what was already a stadium that felt too open. That helped kill the atmosphere as well. · Then add that to the hooliganism. Again, I would be a liar to say I didn’t get caught up in the buzz and the anarchy of the times, it wasn’t something that bothered me as a teenage boy BUT it did drive people away. Rightly or wrongly we probably had a worse reputation for hooliganism than most clubs and that seeped into the popular consciousness and probably stopped people coming. I personally know of two genuine supporters who turned their backs on the club and vowed not to go again and they haven’t (one the day the Dippers won the double at our place and one after the Boro riot). I can’t believe I’m the only one who has experienced this or that they are the only blokes who made that kind of decision back then. 3. Football in general was on a downward spiral. · Hooliganism of course but also more disposable income and other things to entertain oneself with. · Attendances at Chelsea have to be understood in the light of what was happening to football as a whole. The years between 1981 and 1986 were the years of the lowest crowds since pre WWI. Everyone’s crowds were falling, not just ours. Had our demise happened in the 60s or the 2000s (with a nice stadium close to the pitch and good facilities) we would never have seen the low crowds we saw in the 80s. Of course they would have fallen but not to the levels they did. 4. Spurs and Arsenal were, as usual back then, more successful, but just to make matters worse even our smaller local rivals were at their historic peaks just as we were at our historic low. · L’Arse made three Cup Finals in a row 78-80, winning one. They also made the CWC final, had some very good players (Brady et al) and generally finished in a good position in the table. · Spurs, although in Div 2 for a couple of years in the 70s, won the Cup twice (81 &82) and lost in the final in 87. They also won the UEFA, finished third in the League three times in the 80s and fourth twice, usually qualifying for Europe. Their team was exciting to watch, they had Hoddle, Ardiles and Villa and so on. · West Ham won the Cup 1975 and 1980 and mostly finished above us in that period. Also played good football with Brooking, etc. · Palace were the ‘team of the 80s’ for a while, there was a buzz about them between 75 and 80 as they won a number of promotions and made the top flight. · QPR (2 ½ miles away) nearly won the league in 75, made the Cup Final in 82, won the League Cup and often finished above us. · Wimbledon (6 stops on the district line) were on the rise, began to finish above us and even won the f***king Cup and had as many as we did until 97. · Even Foolem ( not much more than a mile and half away) made the Cup Final in 75 and had the Best and Marsh roadshow for a bit. · In fact Millwall were above us for a time and lead the league in what was it? 89? If you were a football fan in London in the mid 70s to 80s Stamford Bridge was not going to be the obvious place to watch your football. Naturally this is a generalisation but I hope you can see the gist of what I’m getting at. Success breeds larger crowds, failure shrinks them. It’s that simple. And we were really up against it back then. One thing that I found funny was that when I brought up the issue of Everton's low crowds in the 80s the Scouser I referred to in my previous post claimed they were "living in our [Liverpool's] shadow." Now how come that can be used to excuse Everton but not us? If Everton had had all the problems we had in that period and all the local rivals doing better what do you think their attendances would have been had they been in Div 2 for 5 years in a row? So, we got just over 13k in ‘82 and just under it in ’83. That’s bad but what were the rest getting? Everton, one of the ‘Big Five’ averaged 20,310 in 1983 and 19,288 in 1984. Arsenal, also in the ‘Big Five’, 25,589 in 1982 and 24,154 in 1983. Spurs, further ‘Big Five’, 20,859 in 1986. All of these clubs were winning FA Cups, finishing in the top half of Div 1 and maybe playing in Europe. Chelsea, averaged 13,132 in 1982 (2nd lowest position), 12,672 in 1983 (lowest league position ever) and 21,120 in 1984 (promoted). More instructive perhaps would be comparisons with Leeds who were getting 15,000 and 13,000 in '82 and '83 and Newcastle 16-17,000 since they were both in Div 2 with us (but from higher positions, with much better grounds and not with the off field problems we were having). Middlesbrough were averaging 8,000, 5,000 and 6000 between 1984 and 1986. Given these figures I really don’t see our gates as remarkably low. Seeing that, until recently, we were far and away the least successful of the top 6 best supported teams (the others being members of the so called ‘Big Five’) one could make the argument that our support has been pretty good. Perfect? No. But probably about as good as others would have been in the same situation. I simply don't agree that the bad was that bad.

The Good So, that first period, the good years, I think anyone would find it hard to dispute that we had very good attendances in our first fifty years (What? History? Us?) but some still do. What’s the evidence for and against? It’s often stated that we have the fifth highest average attendance in English football. The source for this is, I believe, this website: http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn/nav/attnengleague.htm I couldn’t find the actual page on that site but here’s the list that someone else obviously cut and pasted from it (and is now out of date so the averages are wrong even though I believe the club’s positions remain the same): Average All-time Attendances 1 Man. United 36, 885 2 Liverpool 33, 773 3 Tottenham 33, 437 4 Arsenal 32, 413 5 Chelsea 31, 322 6 Newcastle 31, 038 7 Everton 31, 023 8 Man.City 28, 631 9 Aston Villa 27 ,992 10 Leeds 25, 634 It should be noted that there is an important caveat to these figures. We weren’t around pre-1905 when attendances were much lower and maybe some clubs have suffered because of this by having their average dragged down e.g. Aston Villa . Maybe our average is a little artificially high due to this. Whatever the case, when you examine the years we did exist those first fifty were pretty good by anybody’s standards and there is evidence to show this: · We have the third highest ever attendance at an English club ground – the 82,905 at the Arsenal game in 1935. (This comes just behind a Man City Cup game and a Man Utd league match played at Maine Road). · We were the first team to average over 40,000 in a season in 1921. · We were ten times the best supported club in the country (average attendance) between 1905 and 1955. But only in that last year did we actually win anything. Other than that a third place finish in 1920 was as good as it got. One of those years we were best supported was a relegation year (1924) and another was in Div 2 (1926). · Also, I believe (maybe not claiming this as a fact since I couldn’t find the list) we have 4 of the top ten highest attendances of all time (this may not be true now with the redevelopment of Old Trafford but I think it still is). Our top five attendances according to the official club website: 82,905 Arsenal (12/10/1935) - Highest ever attendance for an English League game 77,952 Swindon Town (13/04/1911) - FA Cup Round 4 77,696 Blackpool (16/10/1948) - Football League 76,000 Tottenham Hotspur (16/10/1920) - Football League 75,952 Arsenal (09/10/1937) - Football League So, you’d think that was pretty unequivocal. Those who argue that we have no history and ask where we were when we were sh*t should take a look at this. This is real history, mostly pre-war and, while were weren’t exactly sh*t compared to the eighties, we were hardly setting the world alight either. Most of those years we were never in the running for anything and finished mid table or worse. There is a reason for the old Norman Long music hall song “On the day that Chelsea went and won the cup”. It wouldn’t be funny or worth writing about if we weren’t seen at the time as a ‘big club’ with big attendances that was maybe expected to win it. It wouldn’t and couldn’t have been written about Aldershot for instance. Song starts at 3:24. If you’ve never heard it before you really should: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLgBWOwEXVA So we should get some praise for these attendances from the ‘history’ brigade shouldn’t we? This is surely a period of ‘good’ attendances? Well... no. Firstly they don’t actually know their history, what they repeat ad nauseum is their own prejudice and doesn’t rely on the facts. It’s mostly based on the 80s. Secondly, even if they do know about these figures it still doesn’t satisfy them. They just can’t give us any credit. I’ve had a Scouser tell me our games sometimes got high attendances but our fans were “the most fickle” in the league. Now, I think on one side he was making an argument based on our attendances in the eighties (I’ll cover that elsewhere) and on the other to do with our fluctuating attendances back in the day. For instance his trump card was that one season (38-39) we got 64,443 v Arsenal in October and only 6,801 at home to Liverpool on Christmas Eve. I admit he had me on the back foot after that one for a while because, let’s face it, that’s a pretty shocking fluctuation, but then I did some digging and discovered that in that Christmas period London was in the midst of the worst winter it had experienced in many, many years and half the country from the Wash on down was in snowmageddon territory. London was practically in shutdown. I don’t know if that’s an acceptable excuse (there were about 10,000 at West Ham that day) but it seems fairly valid to me. Then I started looking at other teams’ attendances and the truth is there were loads of clubs who experienced fluctuations just like ours. I found a bunch of others just as bad as that if not worse (on face value). I don’t know what caused Man City to go from 76,166 v Cardiff in one match to 3000 v Forest in another in 23/24 but I’ll bet there was a pretty good reason. In those days postponed fixtures were sometimes rearranged for work days when the factories were full of workers and few could go. Maybe it was the weather again, I don’t know, but we were far from the only two clubs who had this ‘problem’ so it seems to me this was fairly normal for the times: Charlton 1937/8 75,031 v Villa; 14,648 v Stoke Sunderland 1933/4 75,118 v Derby; 3,911 v Pompey (also 9,005 v Middlesbrough) Bolton 1932/3 69,912 v Man City; 5,320 v Pompey Newcastle 1930/31 68,386 v Chelsea; 9,159 v Bolton Sheff Wed 1933/34 72,841 v Man City and 6,546 v Leeds (Mon) and 5,182 v Wolves (Sat) Huddersfield 1931/2 67,037 v Arsenal; 2,963 v Man City Spurs 1936/7 71,913 v Preston; 11,097 v Barnsley 1937/8 75,038 v Sunderland; 11,049 v Stockport Manchester United 1946/7 66,967 v Wolves; 8,456 v Stoke Manchester City 1923/4 76,166 v Cardiff; 3000 v Forest 1925/6 74,799 v Hudds; 11,384 v Arsenal 1933/4 84,569 v Stoke, 13,815 v Liverpool 1934/5 79,491 v Arsenal; 13,899 v Wolves 1936/7 74,918 v Arsenal; 16,146 v Grimsby 1954/5 75,000 v Man Utd; 13,648 v Leicester 1955/6 76,129 v Everton; 15,227 v Everton again (4 days later!) or 13,998 v Charlton Birmingham City 1935/6 60,250 v Villa; 9,089 v Sheff Wed Another point to consider is that, with a bigger ground than most, the potential for getting greater fluctuations existed. So, for me, it’s case dismissed for the naysayers, we had very, very good crowds by the standards of the day which is about the only way you can judge it. And, if we didn't always have bad crowds in the past, what does that mean for the period when we did? Does that make it an aberration rather than the norm?

I said a while back that I’d start a thread on the mystery that is our historical attendances. I’m going to split it into three parts: the good (up to 1955), the bad (1979-1983ish) and the ugly (early 1990s) and try to be as honest and objective as I can be. Any thoughts or comments on any section are of course welcome. My feeling is that there is undoubtedly some truth to oppo fan's claims that our attendances have been sh*t (I mean I missed the infamous 6,009 Orient game but I have been at the bridge with less than 9,000 in it so there's little point denying it totally) but this is actually very far from the full picture. In fact I'd argue that it simply isn't true for the first period (up to 1955) and may not be for the second (the 80s) if you look at it in context. Where I think we come unstuck, and what I struggle to have any good explanation for is the third period, the early 90s. As Carshalton Blue has said this is where the figure are embarrassing and there is little to be said to mitigate them.

Lost my virginity that day, so to speak. 16 years old and it was my first away game 'oop north'. I was on the terracing and yes we were absolutely drenched. I'm pretty sure that I remember checking the half time results against the league table in the programme and if the scores in the relevant games had stayed the same for the second half we were down. Maybe not mathematically but as good as certain. I could be wrong but that's always been my memory. It was tense beyond belief. Couple of other memories: Micky Droy was immense that day and then the Chelsea crowd holding their collective breath when Bolton pumped a high one into our area in the last minute and Steve Francis actually came and held it. Everyone was expecting him to drop it. Oh and one more, there were seats flying out of the stand to our left (seats on top, terracing below?) and all the Bolton scattered except for this one big biker/greaser/heavy metal type who tried acting cool and ignoring it. He was the only one left in firing range, leaning against a crash barrier trying to look nonchalant and I think he was taking some stick from us lot on the terraces. Next thing this single wooden seat comes frisbeeing out of the upper tier in a very wide slow arc, almost like a boomerang, and clocks him right on the back of the head. He took off after his mates like a rabbit much to the merriment of all around me. Not condoning smacking someone on the back of the head with a wooden seat but.... it really was a f***king great shot.

Bates may have been a c**t but he was our c**t.

I think the attendances 'issue' is really interesting. I've wasted some time (too much time!) arguing with a Gooner and Scouser on YouTube over our attendances versus theirs. Probably some truth in what both MB and Downthefront say. It's a complicated issue. I'm going to start a thread on it some time. Maybe not today but soon(ish).

If I'm looking at the right section of those crowds in the North Stand then gobby fans of both Everton and QPR should be shown those photos. To think Everton were one of the historic 'Big 5' that's a pretty poor turnout for first day of the season. At least QPR have the excuse that the game hasn't started yet but I can't see untold hordes sweeping in before it does. Where were we when we were s**t? Where the f**k were you?

Brilliant tale F1905. Sums up perfectly what it was like back in the day.

Agree with F1905. I think I went to every London derby, home and away, between 83 and 87 and for me this one was different to all the rest. Being a night game didn't help of course but it was pretty close to lawless, "a wild west scene" sums it up nicely. I was at college at the time and when this other Chelsea bloke I'd spoken to a couple of times offered me and my mate a ride with his mate we took him up on it thinking it might be the safest way to get there. All well and good until the driver picked us up and we discovered he was a headbanger with only a cheap leather jacket on over the top of that classic 83-85 home shirt. We told him to do his jacket up to hide it when we got out but with that slightly high round neck on that shirt it was still f**king obvious. Bloke was an absolute muppet. I've described what happened before the game but F1905's post reminded me of after the match. We came out and left the main body of Chelsea who were going to the station. Not sure what happened to them but it was going off everywhere it seemed and although there were OB running around in full on riot gear there didn't seem to be any plan or control. It was like they were playing catch up all night. We thought not going with the main group might work in our favour until the four of us realised no one had taken note of where we'd put the car. Four naive teens up from the burbs were now wandering around in bandit country with no idea where the car was. Anyway, a very tense time followed with LOTS of walking around including through a couple of the estates off the OKR before we eventually found it and made it home in one piece. As F1905 said it was "simply scary" and for me very different to any other match I went to around that time.

I have to say my night was a carbon copy of Super Luca's. His posts could have been written by me. We also got there early and it was sheer mayhem. Basically if you were walking up the OKR towards the away end you were getting battered. It seemed like on every corner of every street, and in the entrance ways in to any of the estates round there, there was a small mob waiting. Most of these groups were 20-50 strong and it looked like they were all mates from the estates. As I said earlier anyone who was walking the wrong direction (towards Ilderton Road) or who just didn't look right was getting done. I saw at least two sets of ours getting battered. In one case there was only three of them and this mob of 30 or so just rushed over from the other side of the OKR totally surrounded them and gave 'em a total kicking. In the carnage one bloke got away and got chased onto a routemaster and done on there instead. At that time of the night there were only small groups of Chelsea trying to get to the ground and we were totally outnumbered and not mobbed up at all. When we arrived at the OKR we were at a junction and didn't know which way to go (first trip to Millwall, we were just teenagers up from Surrey). It was already out of control by then. I sidled up to this Old Bill who was standing in some kind of forecourt and very quietly asked him which direction the away end was in. He barely acknowledged me and just moved his head and eyes enough for me to see which way he was suggesting as he whispered this classic: "It's that way. Don't stand near me." There was four of us and we split up, two on each side of the road and twenty feet between the two on the same side. Then we walked up the OKR trying to look like we were out for a stroll and not interested in any match that might be happening in that area, eyes to the ground most of the time. The hatred was unreal that night. Somehow we all made it to Ilderton Road in one piece and we got back together on the same side of the road as we turned the corner. Just as we turned we very luckily came up behind four coppers because at that moment this nasty little mob of about 20-30 came round the corner in the other direction. I walked right up behind the nearest copper. Practically had my chin on his back as we passed through the mob. They were giving it the "you Chelsea c**ts", "f**cking Chelsea w**kers" and all that as they gobbed on us. Anyway, we got through them and I turned round to my mates and said: "f**k me that was close" and as I said it I realised all three of them had blood dripping from noses or split lips. They'd all taken a few punches as the mob passed by. Once in the ground I would agree with Melbourne. I also thought we were about 3000 strong. Have to say though that this was without doubt the quietest away support I experienced in that era. Barely sang a song all night long. The whole game was watched in near silence. It was eerie and so different to the boisterous, piss taking away mobs we used to have back then. A further perspective might be given by others who were with our main mob. I heard they marched down all the way from the Elephant, about 600 of them, a very, very good firm and well up for it. But, apparently, by the time they got there Wall were inside. (Anyone confirm that?) I think there's a lot to be said about what time you got there that night as to what experience you had. I wouldn't have missed it for the world but I'm not sure I'd want to do it again. That walk up to Ilderton Road was about the longest of my life. Great memories though.