11 hours ago, Boyne said:

“Excuse me sir, can you take your laces out please”

Remember seeing lads sitting in the shed re-lacing their D M’s after having them taken from the ole bill!

The metal barriers by the turnstiles had the laces dangling over them!! Imagine being asked to take your shoe laces out in 2025.

12 hours ago, Richard P said:

“Excuse me sir, can you take your laces out please”

Remember seeing lads sitting in the shed re-lacing their D M’s after having them taken from the ole bill!

The metal barriers by the turnstiles had the laces dangling over them!! Imagine being asked to take your shoe laces out in 2025.

Was the football so dire people had to be prevented from stringing themselves up with their soe laces?

Hmmm, if Velcro hadn't been invented yet, now would have been the time to do it.

On 05/11/2025 at 13:28, WhiteWall said:

God, so looked at all of the other results and scorers. Gibbins for Norwich is the only name i don't recognise.

I once played against him. He had a very long career and settled in Cardiff, and played for all three south Wales clubs. He must have been in his 50s when we played against each other, and he stood out a mile because of his technique.

Ticket sales didn't go well for the upper tier of the North Stand that day.

2 hours ago, Backbiter said:

Ticket sales didn't go well for the upper tier of the North Stand that day.

Billy proving the saying wrong!

This weekend, Chelsea Football Club commemorates Remembrance Day with a recently rediscovered special item that did not see the light of day for more than 50 years.

Following World War One, a beautiful wooden Roll of Honour commemorating Chelsea footballers and staff who joined the services during the Great War was created and displayed inside the Stamford Bridge stadium for half a century.

The framed panel was most likely commissioned and installed on a wall of the Main Stand in 1919, soon after the terrible guns of World War One fell silent.

It was rediscovered this summer in a storage area at the Blues' stadium along with other long-lost artefacts, including inscribed metal plates commemorating visits to the ground by royal families from Britain and abroad since 1905.

There are 27 names of Chelsea players and staff on the Roll of Honour

The original grandstand, home to many of these mementoes, was demolished to make way for the current East Stand in 1972, and the Roll of Honour had been hidden away ever since.

Unlike modern Rolls of Honour, which typically commemorate those who lost their lives in a conflict, the Chelsea panel remembers the names of people at the club who joined one of the armed services between 1914 and 1918.

Several listed served in the 17th Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment – ‘the Die-Hards’ – popularly known as ‘the Footballers’ Battalion’.

That unit held a recruitment event at Fulham Town Hall, just down the road from the Bridge, on Tuesday 15 December 1914. Most London clubs sent directors or officials – in Chelsea’s case, club secretary Bert Palmer. His younger brother, Harry, is listed on the panel; he worked in the club office and became secretary in 1939.

To loud applause inside the hall that evening, local MP William Joynson-Hicks, a Chelsea FC vice-president, called for ‘a battalion that would redound to the honour of footballers, not only throughout the length of this country, but from the confines of Flanders to the centre of Berlin.’

Chelsea trio Teddy Foord, Dave Girdwood and Billy Krug all enlisted

© BritishNewspaperArchive.com

As the cutting above from the Daily Gazette shows, three Chelsea footballers on the list answered his call that night – Teddy Foord, Dave Girdwood and Billy Krug.

Foord’s near namesake Harry Ford is among the first team regulars whose careers could easily have been stifled in their infancy, but he was one of eight who made the line-up for the Londoners’ first FA Cup final appearance, the ‘khaki final’ in April 1915.

Another on the list, Jack Harrow, racked up 334 appearances for the Pensioners, the 31st most in our history. Jack Whitley, meanwhile, served as first-team trainer for three decades and beloved England star Vivian ‘Jack’ Woodward joined the Blues’ board in 1922.

For many, like goalkeeper Jim Molyneux’s understudy Krug, who was gassed twice in action and wounded in the leg, the Bridge would become a distant memory.

Billy Krug featured twice for the Blues first team prior to WW1

© BritishNewspaperArchive.com

The inclusion of amateur all-sports superstar Max Woosnam is a reminder that the England football captain, tennis Olympic gold medallist and Wimbledon champion, who also batted to a century at Lord’s and managed a 147 break at snooker, briefly lit up the club before fighting alongside war poet Siegfried Sassoon in Gallipoli.

Just two mortalities of the Great War are listed. John Haddon, a groundsman at the Bridge since 1908, died on 31 July 1916 during the Battle of the Somme.

George Lake was killed agonisingly close to the Armistice that ended the war on 6 November 1918 – our only serving first-team player claimed by the conflict.

As part of the Chelsea Heritage Partnership’s 'Those Were the Days' gatherings and exhibitions, the Roll of Honour will be on display in The Tea Bar at Stamford Bridge ahead of tonight's game against Wolverhampton Wanderers.

14 hours ago, Valerie said:

Was the football so dire people had to be prevented from stringing themselves up with their soe laces?

Hmmm, if Velcro hadn't been invented yet, now would have been the time to do it.

Stopped people kicking away fans if they were brave enough to come in the shed.

https://youtu

Edited November 9, 2025Nov 9 by The Rising Sun
Information

Peter Osgood scoring against West Ham.

And against Ipswich.

Against Crystal Palace.

And against Greenock Morton!😀

P

Dave Sexton discusses the weather ( it’s snowing!😀) with the ref on the Bridge pitch. This was just before the announcement that the match against Stoke was postponed.Late November 1969.

Tommy Docherty checks the nets on the eve of the opening game of the season. August 1965.

Work going on in the background.

The ‘good guys’ leaving the tunnel the pitch against (Dirty) Leeds on 6th November 1965 at The Bridge.

We won 1-0. John Hollins scoring in the 42nd min, before a crowd of 39,373.

Amazingly only one player was booked and that in the 90th minute!

The Bridge looks packed from this photo of the 6th Nov 1965 match.

Construction of the new West Stand in October 1965.

The construction of the new West Stand had been held up due to a shortage of steel. August 1965.

Peter Osgood (with arm raised on left), has just scored against Arsenal in Sept 1966.

This was the equaliser in the 30th min. We won 3-1 ( Bobby Tambling scoring the other two ) in front of an official crowd of 48,001. 😀

Jimmy Greaves scores our second goal v Blackpool at The Bridge. A 2-2 draw. 11th February 1961.

Blackpool goalkeeper George Wood watches the ball as team-mate Terry Alcock (No.5) and Teddy Maybank have their backs to it. You can almost feel the panic in the goalmouth in this picture.October 1975. We won 2-0.

Remembrance: George Lake

Remembering George Lake, the only serving Chelsea first-teamer claimed by the First World War...

It began, as football matters often do, with Match Of The Day. Watching were author and ghostwriter Jo Lake and her husband, former Manchester City prodigy Paul.

This November 2014 episode was commemorating the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War One. The 11th day of the 11th month, which in 1918 brought to a close four years of appalling tragedy, futility and loss of life, is still marked in the UK and elsewhere as Remembrance Day, including at football grounds. In fact, since the adoption of applause to celebrate the life of a lost club favourite, it is often the only time each season that rival sets of supporters unite in silence.

It is a cliché to say the minute’s mute reflection is “impeccably observed” but nonetheless true. As Jo and Paul watched the BBC broadcast the respectful pauses around English stadiums, then showed the list of footballers from each club consumed by the Great War’s appetite for souls, one name broke their contemplation.

Under the list of dead connected to Chelsea was George Lake. The surname set Jo thinking. 'Did you have an ancestor who was a footballer?' she asked Paul. Not as far as he knew, no. Writers are nothing without research skills, though, and Jo pursued this stirring line of enquiry. Perhaps it would inspire Paul, whose struggles with mental ill-health following career-ending pain and suffering she had documented in his autobiography I’m Not Really Here, in his continued recovery.

Paul was at the height of his powers when knee troubles struck at the age of 22 in 1990, stealing the future from him when an England World Cup place was his. He battled back but had to call it quits in 1996. He fondly recalls great tussles with the Blues’ midfield and the likes of Johnny Bumstead or Pat Nevin from his heyday in the late Eighties.

Paul Lake ahead of the 1991/92 season

Wife Jo wanted to find out more about this namesake who played for Chelsea so she contacted me, as official club historian and compiler of that solemn list for Match of the Day. As an experienced family history researcher, George had been on my radar since 2009, so it took just a few days to grow the extra branches of his family tree. Yes, I confirmed to her, he was the older brother of Paul’s grandfather Harold: George Andrew Lake was in fact Paul Andrew Lake’s great uncle. Yes, they even shared a middle name too. The news was a huge surprise to his surviving family, who had no idea of this lost relative and footballer’s existence.

'I’ve begun to fully understand the experiences that our ‘Tommies’ endured and in particular, my Great Uncle George,' wrote Paul a few days later. 'It’s been quite an emotional couple of days and thanks to your help, we as a family can come to terms with this news and look to celebrate George’s all too brief life.'

As if that was not poignant enough, as part of his community role with the Premier League, Paul worked at a Truce Tournament in Belgium, at which under-12 teams of European clubs commemorated the guns falling silent 100 years before. The youngsters played matches on ‘no-man’s land’ and learned about trench warfare. Chelsea’s team won the tournament – not that that was the point: it was very much about the taking part.

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Boys in Khaki, Boys in Blue

Chelsea in the First World War

Paul’s own travails now applied a different perspective to the World War One story and the connection to his great-uncle brought an emotional profundity to a ceremony at the Menin Gate, where ‘The Last Post’ was played.

There are 36 people buried at Frasnoy Communal Cemetery, 10 miles south-east of Valenciennes in northeast France. All fell in or after a 4 November 1918 attack across the Sambre-Oise Canal towards the German stronghold of Le Quesnoy, the same battle at which the famous war poet, Wilfred Owen, was slain.

George, the only serving Chelsea first-teamer claimed by the conflict, is one of the 36, dying two days later from wounds sustained on 6 November – just five days before peace finally flowed across Europe. He was one of the very last fatalities of the 886,000 among the British forces.

Further research uncovered George’s great-niece, Mrs Jacqueline Selwood, who knew all about her footballing ancestor. She still has the letter of condolence (pictured below), dated 20 November 1918 and penned to George’s brother William by his manager at Stamford Bridge, David Calderhead, and proudly preserved by the family.

'Dear sir,' wrote the Chelsea tactician. 'I am in receipt of your note recording the Death of your brother George. All the people at Chelsea beg to express to you and your family there [sic] very sincere sympathy in your great sorrow, he was very greatly respected by both Players and Officials of the Club and we were in the hope that after the War he would again play for us. He is the only Chelsea player who has fallen. I again beg to express our Sympathy. Yours faithfully, D. Calderhead.'

The matchday programme, the Chelsea FC Chronicle, carried an obituary commending George as 'hard working, efficient and consistent'. He was just 29 – two years older than his great-nephew when he was forced to retire.

George’s route to the Pensioners’ first team had not been an easy one. Born in Eastham, on the Wirral, in 1889, the son of a Devon stonemason, he had actually joined Calderhead’s side from Manchester City reserves in September 1913 and shown promise, becoming a stalwart of the Chelsea second string.

He had to wait patiently for his first-team debut, in place of injured Sam Downing, at West Bromwich Albion on 14 April 1914, a few games before the season’s close. Although he evidently played well, it was not the goalscoring bow widely reported, an error arising from mistaken identity that must momentarily have thrilled his family back in Manchester. Lake had actually switched positions with Fred Taylor from the team printed in the programme, and it was the latter whose long shot had actually eluded the goalie.

The Chelsea FC Chronicle in September 1914 urging every man to 'do his duty'

George remained a regular in the reserves as the 1914/15 season began, despite war breaking out at the start of August 1914. On many occasions, such as the charity match in aid of the National Relief Fund against a Grenadier Guards XI at the Bridge on 12 November, the man in centre midfield alongside him was none other than Nils Middelboe, the famous ‘Great Dane’.

Professional football closed down in 1915, though, and George returned home to Manchester and enlisted with the 39/66th 2nd East Lancashire Regiment Territorial Force as a cyclist, eventually arriving in France in February 1917.

The cyclist’s role in World War One was versatile and precarious. At home, cyclist units patrolled coastal areas where invasion might be expected. On the Frontline, it involved enemy reconnaissance, delivering dispatches or simple transportation (they were, after all, soldiers too). Wireless communication was for future battlefields and cable could easily be cut or damaged, so physical, life-or-death messages were regularly carried from command to trench or battery unit.

It is a measure of the peril involved that the first British casualty of the Great War was Private John Parr, a reconnaissance cyclist with the 4th Middlesex, killed in action at Mons, Belgium, on 21 August 1914.

The cyclist role had obvious crossovers with the athletic capabilities of professional footballers such as George, many of whom were otherwise deployed as physical exercise trainers. Often, though, two wheels proved incompatible with trench conditions and units found themselves stowing away their bicycles and joining regular units – generally on the frontline.

This happened to George, whose regiment suffered such devastating losses in the face of Germany’s Spring Offensive at the battle of St Quentin in March 1918 they were reduced from 9,500 fighting men to just 2,500.

This is probably when the Chelsea man was transferred to the 2/4th Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment, attached to the 62nd West Riding Division, and became embroiled in a relentless succession of battles as the Allies pushed through Picardy. It was here that his life was prematurely taken.

War memorials in Picardy in northern France

'We’re not sure why George’s story wasn’t passed down through the generations,' Paul pondered. 'My dad died in 1997 but never mentioned his uncle.'

Paul has since met his cousin Jacqueline and visited his once-forgotten ancestor’s grave in Frasnoy. He still reflects on his great-uncle’s heartbreaking fate: taken from the brink of stardom on the field of a great football club to the mayhem and destruction of the battlefield, losing his life as it was just beginning.

George Lake’s name is on the Great War memorial at Clayton Park, just a mile away from the Etihad Stadium. It also appears on the Chelsea FC Roll of Honour, among serving or former footballers killed during World War One.

This article first appeared in the Chelsea matchday programme in 2023. You can buy past copies of the programme here.

Boyne: Absolutely fascinating article. Cheers for posting it!

When we beat Newcastle 4-0 at The Bridge on 12th November 1983.

From official club site. Originally published in November 2019.

Thirty-six years ago a remodelled Chelsea side hosted former European Footballer of the Year and England captain Kevin Keegan who had chosen the challenge lifting Newcastle out of the second division. What followed was a game to remember for the London club…

In mid-November 1983 John Neal was urging his promotion hopefuls to bounce back after a midweek League Cup defeat and to close a four-point gap between the resurgent Blues and visitors Newcastle, as-yet unbeaten in Division Two.

Keegan approached the game on a run of nine goals in 10 league games and with a ringing endorsement from former team-mate Joey Jones, now of Chelsea, in the press. ‘He was brilliant against us last season,’ the Wales defender warned.

In the event, Jones and co. kept Keegan in check and the Blues ran out 4-0 winners thanks to a 25-yarder from Nigel Spackman, Peter Rhodes-Brown’s drilled effort and two goals for David Speedie. A young Chelsea star also made his mark in emphatic fashion.

Two-goal David Speedie

‘Kevin Keegan didn’t know what hit him and Chelsea’s destruction of his famed Newcastle was crushingly spectacular,’ reported Nigel Clarke in the Daily Mirror. ‘The little man can hardly ever have had such an ineffective game and he was overshadowed completely by Pat Nevin, his opposite number.’

The Blues have usually been better off for a Scot in our midst, and Nevin, reviving memories of an earlier north-of-the-border maestro, Charlie Cooke, announced his coming of age with a string of mazy dribbles. One sensational run took him the length of the field, past five opponents, with a final pass that should have ended in another goal.

Ever the good sport, Keegan was first to congratulate the young winger at the final whistle. ‘The referee should have inspected his boots to see if he had glue on them,’ joked the Newcastle legend afterwards. ‘I was very impressed with him.’

Kevin Keegan trying to get to grips with Pat Nevin

A more maudlin take came from the Geordies’ under-fire manager Arthur Cox. ‘That’s the worst beating we’ve had since Chelsea put six past us three years ago,’ he groaned. Fortunately for viewers in the north-east, an industrial dispute meant no ‘Match of the Day’ that night.

Even local Newcastle newspaper the Journal was impressed with the hosts, though, observing that ‘Newcastle were swept up in this regeneration of a Chelsea side now becoming part of the fashionable London footballing scene once again.’

Kerry Dixon rising high

For the Mirror’s reporter, too, the 30,000-plus crowd and Chelsea’s football were a throwback: ‘a reminder of the good old days: the flavour, the flair and the fun of a side that ruled London for almost a decade.’

Yes, I know I’ve posted this article before. Just thought it was worth reposting.

^^What season was that?😀