Back in the 80's Chelsea always took a good following around the country, but I was just wondering what's the worst they've took? I seem to recall reading about 400 at leicester in 77/78 and a similar number at Ewood Park for a night game in 1982.

Lowest? There were plenty of games in the early '70s when only a handful of Chelsea showed up. Newcastle away springs to mind. The first couple of times I went there you could spend all day playing Spot The Chelsea fan.

spurs away 1975 ( not outside Bluebeard !), any west ham game in the 70s, Birmingham 75, Leicester in 74( last game of the season, any Everton or Liverpool game in the early 70s

Hull City away twice:

Midweek (old) 2nd division promotion season 88?? - we lost 3-0, couldn't care less and it was dodgy outside.

Saturday FA cup 3rd or 4th round, Sutton was playing for us. The Autoglass yeras, 1999 or 2000? I think we won 5-0 or 5-1 with a Poyet hat trick.

i went to a Simod Cup tie at SB in 1992 (i think!) against Southampton and there were 7k there! awful. we lost too.

away from home, its hard to recall our away support is generally good, though nowhere near as good as it used to be. i remember going to coventry once for a midweek game and there only being a few hundred of us there.

Two that spring to mind are the first time we went to Carlisle in 74 I think, no more than 200 at that one, and Newcastle away, arse end of 87 season and nothing to play for. I was in the Gallowgate with a geordie chum who'd got some comps and if there was 100 Chelsea there I'd be surprised. As mentioned previously on this post there were a few London aways in the 70s where it was easy to think that you was the only Chelsea supporter in the ground, Westham in 74 and 75, Arsenal on Boxing day 74 are the ones I remember.

Surprised to see the Hull game in 88 mentioned, if it's the same one, pissing rain, Tuesday night and lost 3-0, I seem to remember us having a decent turn out for that one, no argument on how dodgy it was outside the ground though, biggest tip of a town I've ever been to and Boothferry Park was in the dodgiest part of a very dodgy city, not one of the best nights to be a travelling Chelsea fan.

Edited November 12, 201014 yr by MKBlue

Difficult one, this, especially as I find it difficult to remember specific seasons.

As has already been mentioned, West Ham away in the early 70's was nearly always a no-show by Chelsea, really pissed me off. We rarely took much of a mob to either scouse club or Newcastle either. There were a couple of games at Highbury where we should have had a lot more fans, and our following at Man.Utd was piss-poor until the late 70's.

To be honest, most of the games I attended we almost always took at least one football special, plus numerous coaches & vans.

Edited November 12, 201014 yr by BlueBeard

i went to a Simod Cup tie at SB in 1992 (i think!) against Southampton and there were 7k there! awful. we lost too.

away from home, its hard to recall our away support is generally good, though nowhere near as good as it used to be. i remember going to coventry once for a midweek game and there only being a few hundred of us there.

Are you sure it wasnt called the Zenith cup then, because if it was then I was at that game too. I was probably stood near you as we were all huddled in one lump if I remember rightly.

it couldve been the zenith. who knows ? who cares ?! i recall the score was 3-1 to southampton and i think im right in saying Le Tissier got all three.

funnily enough, 3 days later we had the biggest crowd at SB for years, about 35k for a fa cup game against sheff utd. very typical of our support back then. that was the year we all thought our name was on the cup, and we were so gutted when we got knocked out at sunderland in the qf.

Edited November 12, 201014 yr by bjd

It was all the same trophy anyway wasnt it? Just changed name every 3 months, well it seemed like it. Yeah, same game, we got battered by them. Do you know the worst thing though, I had to pick between the games for which one to get tickets and picked the Saints game. DOH!

i remember hull city in 75 around chritmas time, not many Chelsea went up but still went in their end and took liberties.

spurs away 1975 ( not outside Bluebeard !), any west ham game in the 70s, Birmingham 75, Leicester in 74( last game of the season, any Everton or Liverpool game in the early 70s

Although a load of Chelsea didn't get into WHL in '75, there was still a big group on the west side of the Park Lane end. We didn't have many at Hull for that cup game when Poyet scored a hat trick I think. Considering the importance of the match, we had a pretty bad turnout (numbers wise) for that play off at Middlesbrough in '88. Of course there's also been occasions when Chelsea fans were banned or we just wern't given a away allocation, Newcatle when they were rebuilding their ground. A few of us got tickets through a fellow fanzine writer up there and stood on the Gallowgate. Finished 0-0 so couldn't tell if we were the only blues in the ground.

the days of low Chelsea followings in big london games ended in 1975,but we had massive followings up to this time at qpr, palace, orient etc, anything dogy 'up north' around this time was steered clear of although you could go to coventry for example and their were thousands

I had left London to move out in the sticks in 1977. Nearest ground of note was Norwich, it was the season Ossie returned, would probably be early 1979 because I never went regular to away games until 1980. We played Norwich away in a testimonial match, there was about 40 of us there!

Went to two away games that I can remember that year, fantastic turnout at Man United in the FA Cup, can't remember the result, was about 16 - we went up by car, the specials were cancelled because Chelsea rioted somewhere a couple of weeks earlier, we had something like 12,000 there bleedin' amazing seeing the club also did everything in their power to ensure we all never got there.

My dad drove me to Middlesbrough for the return of Ossie, he scored and dad went mental, think we lost 7-1 in the end, was a fair few there.

Like it has been said Hull away, was there when Poyet scored and remember another game at Hull in the late 80's, seem to think we had a fair turnout if my memory serves me right.

Saw plenty of games at the Bridge as a kid up to 1977 and was a fair few games less than 10,000 but away in the 1980's onward we were a match for anyone away from home where numbers were concerned and the backing of the team was incredible.

Edited January 5, 201114 yr by Star

We played Norwich away in a testimonial match, there was about 40 of us there!

Probably about the same (if not less) when we went to Roots Hall for Danny Greaves testimonial in 1990. Even the Southend fans stormed the pitch after to get Kerry Dixon's autograph.

Lowest Chelsea following was at Plymouth in the 70's.

Main Chelsea mob crawling on their bellies behind a hillock in a park to confront the Argyle fans who thought they had the rest of us Chelsea on the run - the looks on the Plymouth fans faces was indescribable, brilliant day out!

Can't get much lower than crawling on your bellies to ambush your opponents!

Edited January 6, 201114 yr by BlueBeard

Lowest Chelsea following was at Plymouth in the 70's.

Main Chelsea mob crawling on their bellies behind a hillock in a park to confront the Argyle fans who thought they had the rest of us Chelsea on the run - the looks on the Plymouth fans faces was indescribable, brilliant day out!

I remember that one. I got a late train and arrived at half time, walked all the way round to were the Chelsea wearing a red white and green scarf (yes that was me), shouting "Chelsea" at Plymouth fans who were ... quite clearly confused. At the end of the game the old bill were going to keep us in but we dislodged some corrugaged iron to force our way out. I was with the lot that led the pursuing Plymouth into the rest of the Chelsea. Day and a half that one!

I remember that one. I got a late train and arrived at half time, walked all the way round to were the Chelsea wearing a red white and green scarf (yes that was me), shouting "Chelsea" at Plymouth fans who were ... quite clearly confused. At the end of the game the old bill were going to keep us in but we dislodged some corrugaged iron to force our way out. I was with the lot that led the pursuing Plymouth into the rest of the Chelsea. Day and a half that one!

I must have been in the same mob as you, must admit I was as surprised as the Plymouth fans when I saw the main Chelsea mob materialise out of nowhere :D

there were two games against plymouth around 7576 the first one where we won 3-0, i think, the special was only three quarters full at best. Not bad, as we had nothing to play for, but there was a mob in their end and caused havoc then it went off in the park after, in those days it was more quality than quantity

The "Norwich in the fog" thread reminded me of this one. Foggy night back in the early '70s, maybe '72 or '73 I went straight from work to an evening kick off game at White Hart Lane. And I don't think I saw any other Chelsea fans that night. In fact the only people I knew were a handful of Arsenal fans. We won the game 1-0 and as I said, I didn't see another other Chelsea. I was spotted though, and without going into details, it's no exaggeration to say that I was extremely lucky to get out of there in one piece.

was it not 2-1 to us? I seem to remember that chopper scored a screamer, and that was the only night game around that time apart from the semi final. Agree hardly any chelsea there apart from a very small mob that turned up in the park lane, and that was not even their end anymore, the paxton and the shelf all came round to have a go, embarrasing!

I've just checked (here), and you're right 2-1 it was. That was in 1973-74. It was the season before we won 1-0 at WHL. The 2-1 night game is definitely the one I was thinking of though. It was so foggy that night, and I was so preoccupied in getting away from the sh*thole in one piece, that I wasn't even sure whether or not the match had been abandoned. I'm pretty sure I was at the 72-73 game as well but don't have any specific memory of that one.

the 1-0 game was on match of the day and hollins scored, that day chelsea were in the paxton , a slightly better turnout

Seriously, I wish my memory was half as good as yours. I was 17 at the time of the 73-74 game, for instance, which was before I'd really started drinking heavily, but even so all too much of what happened back then is just a bit of a blur.

the worst turnout though of all time i was going was at west ham in 75, no chelsea there whatsoever, the north bank singing "chelsea where are you" and a three nil defeat, could not work that out as when we played up north loads would turn up but a 15 mile trip and nobody