very happy to see them play again, never thought it would happen

 

good night overall

Decent performance from us. I knew we would never have the same intensity as a league game, but the senior players really dig in, especially in the last 5. The youth players didn't leave much impression on the game, I thought Boga did some cool dribbling and lacked the last pass, Ake/Christenson didn't do much wrong in defence. Mikel was doing a poor man's impression of Cesc, to his credit he did start a few good counter attacks.

Was in about the fifth row in the shed end with the other supporters groups, we made plenty of noise only shame was that we kept having 2 or 3 different songs going at the same time. There was celery everywhere and a bloke jumped through a chair and broke it when doing the bouncy.

 

The first half was great, the second half we seemed to coast and some of the young players seemed to struggle to make an impact, we sorta escaped with the win at the end there.

 

Massive attendance and everywhere I went in Sydney there were Chelsea fans everywhere, hopefully this encourages them to come back again soon.

Edited June 3, 201511 yr by Jonty

Unfortunate I couldn't attend (am stuck up in Brisbane for the time being for unrelated reasons). 

 

But it's still great to see them down here. 

Just noticed, we played in a different goalkeeper kit for the Sydney game. The difference is very slight but worth a look.

Was in about the fifth row in the shed end with the other supporters groups, we made plenty of noise only shame was that we kept having 2 or 3 different songs going at the same time. There was celery everywhere and a bloke jumped through a chair and broke it when doing the bouncy.

The first half was great, the second half we seemed to coast and some of the young players seemed to struggle to make an impact, we sorta escaped with the win at the end there.

Massive attendance and everywhere I went in Sydney there were Chelsea fans everywhere, hopefully this encourages them to come back again soon.

Sounds like a good time for all of the fans from down under.

It was amazing.

Fantastic couple of days. Arrived from Melbourne in the morning and there were about 50 Chelsea on the flight, only two of them I'd ever seen before at various supporters functions.  All the supporter groups met up at the Aurora pub in the city and many drank there til 5pm before walking the short distance to the main station to get the train to the ground.  Why there was a police escort for this I will never know,  As for fining one of the Melbourne lads $500 for carrying his beer into the station, do you want major events in Sydney or what? Surely a tap on the shoulder and a smile would have sufficed. 

 

The train ride from that lot was apparently sensational, and I'm sure a lot of the singing is on youtube by now given what I've seen on Facebook.

 

I was already at the stadium and a very good fan zone had been set up with a brewery quite handily next to it.  Chelsea I think had subsidised the program ($10 was very reasonable) and put the two trophies on display for free photos. Unfortunately the lack of a fee meant that it required queueing for 2 hours for your selfie with the silverware.  We baliled out after an hour to go to the brewery.

 

Into the ground early and Chelsea had supplied 15,000 free flags for the Chelsea end of the ground. We were to find out that there were in face 4 Chelsea sides to the ground with just a bay or two of Sydney fans at the far end.  Behind our end the organisers had set up a marquee at the back called the 'Shed Bar' and it would have been rude not to spend the two hours til kick off in there.  There were couches and heaters in there, so very hospitable.  Only problem was a DJ pumping our mind-numbing techno music.  I used to like this stuff, but time and place eh! With the train load of supporters groups still not there half an hour after opening, it was thought that a few chants might drive the DJ away and it worked for a little while.  He started up again after 5 minutes, but fortunately soon after the reinforcements arrived and he just gave up and never played again.

 

The 5 main supporters groups had 400 tickets in a bay behind the goal at the 'Shed End'. They all went into the stand itself about half an hour before kick off when the players warmed up. The game started and we basically created several good chances, with Remy firing in a rocket around the half hour mark.  Apart from a double chance for Sydney soon after, with a great clearance by Ivan, it was mostly Chelsea until the frantic final minutes when we had mostly kids on and Sydney could have scored three times. I counted 9 good chances we had and was pretty satisfied with the perfromance.

 

We hung around for an hour after and my lad got a couple of autographs. Well done to Ivan, Matic, Dave, Diego and the many junior players who came out to sign.  A special mention to Eden who starred throughout, and really was worth the admission money alone. We had gone off the boil in the league in recent games but he realised that nearly 84,000 mostly Chelsea fans had come to watch him and the team on a rare visit, and he really busted a gut for us and turned on all his tricks.

 

The next morning was a unfulfilled walk around town hoping to spot players, but I think they were on the way to the airport by then, so we headed for our flight too. Lots of great memories of the trip, and a big thank you to Chelsea and the head of the Sydney Chelsea Supporters Club for making it all happen.

Booing that DJ off the stage in the shed bar was hilarious.