On 09/07/2023 at 20:05, Scott said:

You want to feel good?

Enjoy.

 

 

Thanks for that, mate! It's saving my late monday night.

Watching the 04-05/05-06 season right now and to think we had goals from about anywhere on the field, fielding both Crespo and Drogba to having Havertz and Auba "leading" the line last season, 20 years do make a diference haha

On 11/07/2023 at 17:03, Boyne said:

It was a unique ground, full of quirks; then again most old stadia were. Stands were built one at a time and more than often didn’t match what was adjacent to them. Highbury was probably the most symmetrical. 

Most of the new grounds I’ve been to lack character. Give me a higgledy piggedly Luton, over a Brittania Stadium any day of the week, even allowing for inferior facilities 

I am sure Bristol rovers had rose bushes in between the pitch and the speedway track and Aldershot had a municipal garden at one end of their ground. Character and history.

R.I.P. Chris Garland.

https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/article/chris-garland-1949-2023

It is with great sadness that Chelsea Football Club receives the news of the passing of our striker from the 1970s, Chris Garland.

 

He was 74 and had been suffering from a long illness.

Garland spent four seasons at Stamford Bridge, scoring 31 goals in 114 appearances. He was signed in the wake of our European Cup Winners’ Cup victory in 1971, a £100,000 transfer from his hometown club Bristol City. He was an England Under-23 international.

With Keith Weller having left Chelsea after only one season, Garland was brought in to bolster a striker pool of Peter Osgood, Ian Hutchinson and Tommy Baldwin, with the ultra-brave Hutchinson suffering especially from injury problems.

 

Chris Garland playing away at Derby in his first Chelsea season

A penetrating, hard-working and unselfish attacker, powerful in the air, the new arrival made his debut shortly after joining, in a home draw with Coventry in September 1971 and set up a goal for Osgood in the first three minutes. However there was scarce action in the early months of that maiden season as niggling injuries hampered him, as they would throughout, but Garland’s first goal was an important one in a big match – an equaliser with a near-post header in what ended a 3-2 win over Tottenham in the first leg of a League Cup semi-final.

He made it back-to-back home goals that late December by netting in a 2-0 win over Ipswich and then came a major moment. In the League Cup second leg at White Hart Lane with Spurs leading, Garland again struck a leveller to make it 1-1. Drama followed when a last-minute Alan Hudson goal secured a 2-2 draw to send the Blues into a cup final for a third successive season. Garland’s goal, a well-struck left-foot shot from outside the area was one he rated as his best for the Blues.

Garland played that Wembley showpiece but sadly Chelsea were pipped 2-1 by underdogs Stoke City. It could have been different. He almost scored a vital injury-time equaliser after intercepting a wayward back pass from Mike Bernard but legendary goalkeeper Gordon Banks made a great save to reduce the player he thwarted to post-match tears.

 

At Wembley in the League Cup final

The Blues striker followed that with a goal flurry in April, scoring three times including a winner against Crystal Palace and a strike in a revenge league win over Stoke as the team finished seventh in the First Division.

Garland more than doubled his goal tally the next season, registering 14 in 36 appearances (he was joint-topscorer in the league with Osgood), with that 1972/73 campaign starting especially well with five goals in four games including an opening-day double against big rivals Leeds at the Bridge.

Again the League Cup was the closest he and the team came to silverware but this time the semi-final and Norwich City proved an insurmountable hurdle.

By now matches were being played against the backdrop of problems caused by the drawn-out reconstruction of the East Stand and player unrest. The team was finishing lower down the league table. In 1973/74 Garland scored three times in 26 league games, often in an attack with other recent signings Steve Kember and Bill Garner after manager Dave Sexton dropped and then sold some of his long-time regulars.

 

A Stamford Bridge appearance versus Leicester in 1974

The following season was Garland’s last at Chelsea and after eight goals scored, including a double in a 2-1 win at Highbury, he moved on to Leicester City for a £95,000 fee, thereby remaining in the top flight while Chelsea were relegated.

He later returned to Bristol City. Post retirement, in 1992 he revealed he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease a few years earlier. Former Chelsea team-mate Osgood was one of the first people he told. 

We send our deepest condolences to Chris’s family and friends.

RIP Chris, One of my favourite Chelsea players. Scored some great goals including that stunning goal against Spurs.

5 hours ago, M4 corridor said:

I am sure Bristol rovers had rose bushes in between the pitch and the speedway track and Aldershot had a municipal garden at one end of their ground. Character and history.

Sheffield United had only 3 sides for football fans , and a cricket pitch on the large open  fourth side .

RIP Chris, always remember the goal v Spurs .

The Dell was pretty ramshackle. Worked with a Saints fan that spun a good yarn... Apparently before kick off someone entered an unlocked door under a stand, to find he was in a small gymnasium. From there he went to his usual standing spot in the paddock, right on the touchline....the game started....Mick Channon got flagged for offside...next thing the linesman’s felled by a medicine ball hurled into his back and he’s face down chewing the cud!

 

Hereford perhaps would be one of the worst grounds of that era, a truly dreadful place!

Probably posted before but then again you can't have too many pictures of the old Shed End.

At Selhurst Park behind the goal , the terrace was at the lower part of the end and the rest of the end going up the back was a grass bank .

I'm the rain  the mud was fecking slippery. I think there may have been grass at the other end too.

I can't seem to be able to post pictures anymore but there must be some out there. 

Filbert Street . Under that stand behind the goal in the 60s , fans getting hauled out by blokes in civvies. We thought they were plain clothes old bill. Weird. There weren't any security staff back then , so it must have been I suppose.

Back then there was a massive difference in fashion , haircuts etc between different cities and London.

We told a lot of made up stories about London football firms ,( guns being used etc😂 to wide eyed Leicester lads.)

😂😂😂

Possibly posted before and judging by the cars the photo was taken in the 1920s or early 1930s.

Not sure who we were playing but early in the season 88/89 when fans weren't allowed into the ground after the match against Middlesbrough at the end of the previous season.

Looks like Dorigo in the foreground.

It was only the away fans, I remember being at the Blackburn game which I think might have been the first game of that season. I was young but remember it being weird with the away end empty!

15 hours ago, Mod said:

It was only the away fans, I remember being at the Blackburn game which I think might have been the first game of that season. I was young but remember it being weird with the away end empty!

Pretty sure it was the terraces that were closed completely for everyone but the seats were open ... punishment for the Boro game .

Just now, The Rising Sun said:

Pretty sure it was the terraces that were closed completely for everyone but the seats were open ... punishment for the Boro game .

Yea probably that, was just the East and West open! I think it was for about 6 games or something like that?

6 minutes ago, Mod said:

Yea probably that, was just the East and West open! I think it was for about 6 games or something like that?

Sounds about right mate.

Thinking about this, I can't remember what punishment we got for that Sunderland league cup night game ?

 

Just now, The Rising Sun said:

Sounds about right mate.

Thinking about this, I can't remember what punishment we got for that Sunderland league cup night game ?

 

I don't remember that one, only the carnage after that Boro game.

16 hours ago, Boyne said:

Not sure who we were playing but early in the season 88/89 when fans weren't allowed into the ground after the match against Middlesbrough at the end of the previous season.

Looks like Dorigo in the foreground.

Yeah looks like him...at left back I presume? But where's the rest of the fecking team ? Either they've left their right winger free to bomb down the line or that's the lino, the only one on the pitch making an effort !!

8 minutes ago, Mod said:

I don't remember that one, only the carnage after that Boro game.

😂

The carnage after Sunderland continued at Parsons Green with trains attacked full of  West Ham returning from Fulham .

Thank f**k that's a long long time in the past.

Blimey, was that around that same time, or before?

Found this video which is a review of the 88/89 season. The terraces were closed for the first six games.. Can see fans in the East Stand. As for the picture with Dorigo I wonder if it was a training session. Game against Sunderland was February 1985. A night of carnage. Can't recall fans not being allowed into the ground for games afterwards but could be wrong.