Thought it might be worth some analysis on our fans........................but this isn't psycophantic twaddle about how great we all are...........here goes;

1960's - docherty's diamonds brought in new generation young players and lots young fans too. MOTD & THBM often featured CFC and our fans chants - quite a few songs developed in that era. Backend of the 60's saw plenty of trouble, especially away when the challenge was to take the home teams end - remember Spurs away when 60 arrests made. Our fans pretty good apart from MANU at home, when the red-devils always arrived early and filled the Shed. Most grounds you could walk all the way round the ground at half-time (including at the bridge). End of the 60's was the first skinhead era and that too attracted certain types fans

1970's - the early years had all the glamour in the team, and we had very large away following, and no problem taking anyone on - at home the Shed was noisy and full. The latter years after we went bust the ground was a tip, but still had big following away................remembr some good battles with wolves home & away. The team was stripped and we had 11 home grown players promoted to the first team - we couldn't get anyone to sign for us and the toilets literally dripped with p..s - tough times!

1980's -plenty of you guys came out of this era, and this was when we developed the real mob culture and earned reputation for being willing/able to take on anyone. 10000 away fans not unusual, and after we survived relegation to div3 (yes div 3), john neal brought in 5 new players and at last we had some new heroes, still talked about today - wee pat, kerry, speedo etc. 1982 was like the old days & 40000 at home when we got promoted back to div 1 - police leave cancelled all over England. 1980's also brought in the new clothes cultures and complete lack of team colours especially on away trips - same as today for some our fans! End of the 80's Bobby Campbell got us back up again but not much glamour in our play with that team.

1990's - first half was repeat of the 80's with plenty trouble and full press coverage and a team no quite good enough..................we were called a 'sleeping giant' by some but the fans tailed off in this era, no real heroes or decent football.................For me, this was our second really low point, nothing fashionable about chelsea and then in came Glen Hoddle (an ex-Spurs player!) but he changed the club forever cos he tried to play football without great players and he got us to the FA Cup final - the semi was like the old days - 40000 fans singing CHELSEA ARE BACK. Yes we were hammered in the final but we all felt we were back where we belong, and had something to build on

Call this Part 1 - and ends with lots fans taking their kids to Wembley for the 1st time, a new generation of fans at last

Nice post!

I want to read more stories about 70's and 80's...

For those of you that were not around at the time, ws6Blue means by 'Surviving relegation to Div 3' that we narrowly avoided it (in 1983 we finished about 5th from the bottom of Div 2 - a win in the last game proving to be crucial) Happy days.