The story of our maiden voyage Down Under.

https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2018/7/5/the-story-of-our-maiden-voyage-down-under

Chelsea playing matches in Australia is by no means a common occurrence, but it is nothing new, either.

So, ahead of our latest trip Down Under, when we will take on Perth Glory on Monday 23 July, the official Chelsea website has delved into the history books to find out more about the first time we headed to Oz, for a gruelling six-week, 11-match tour in 1965…

Chelsea, under the management of Tommy Docherty, had gone mighty close to winning a second league championship during the 1964/65 campaign, derailed only towards the closing stages by a fixture backlog and the infamous ‘Blackpool incident’.

Healing some of the wounds from that saga, when eight players were sent home from the North-West for breaking team curfew, was a factor behind the decision to embark on an epic post-season tour of Australia.

The Doc felt such adventures presented a good opportunity for team bonding, and they also gave him a chance to try out relatively untested players with the following season in mind. That the previous two such tours were to the Canary Islands, in 1963, and the Caribbean, in 1964, suggests a healthy dose of sea, sand and sun was not unwelcome by staff and players alike.

Although Docherty determined there would be no breaches of discipline in Australia, ‘six weeks in the sun, in the lager capital of the world, without drink, was pushing it for this Chelsea team’, Peter Osgood recalled in his autobiography.

It was an important few weeks for the future King of Stamford Bridge. Just 17, and with a handful of first team appearances to his name, Osgood capitalised on the initial absence on tour of Barry Bridges, who was away with England.

Thirteen goals in 11 games was an impressive return for Ossie, and he was given great encouragement by his retention of the fabled no.9 shirt when Bridges joined up with the squad halfway through the tour. The more experienced attacker was shunted out to the wing to accommodate Osgood playing in the centre-forward role.

His and our first game was at the historic Sydney Cricket Ground, which a few months later would hold an Ashes test won by England. More than 25,000 fans were there to watch an easy 5-0 win for the Blue

It kicked off a hectic few weeks in one of the world’s biggest countries. Subsequent matches took place in Canberra, Newcastle, Melbourne, Perth (at the WACA, pictured top), Adelaide, back in Sydney, Tasmania, Melbourne again, Wollongong and, finally, Brisbane. The internal travel alone amounted to more than 8000 miles.

‘My abiding memory of that tour is of airports as we hopped around from one part of Australia to another,’ said Osgood, who had left the UK’s shores for the first time.

The opposition were uniformly semi-professional, among them the Australian national team who Chelsea played against, and drew with, twice. They were the only games on tour the travelling Londoners didn’t win.

 

Time off included a trip to a vineyard where Osgood had his first taste of red wine, encouraged to do so by Docherty,

until chairman Joe Mears spotted what was going on and demanded the manager take the glass away from the underage drinker.

 

The busy schedule took its toll, and a match report for the penultimate fixture was headlined ‘A Yawn of a Match’ as Chelsea scraped to a 1-0 victory against a South Coast XI in Wollongong.

Their coach-captain Jimmy Kelly concluded that ‘Chelsea’s programme in Australia has been too hard’ after the game, but for Osgood at least it proved a seminal moment in the formative days of a wonderful career.

 

 

Edited May 12, 20206 yr by erskblue

Couple of photos I've come across from our May/June 1965 Tour of Australia.

 

We played the following games.

8th May 1965 Chelsea beat New South Wales 5-0 in a friendly

Info on game is from

 https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20041220052108/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/148162/20190910-0117/www.ozfootball.net/ark/MiscGames/1965SR/65S6.html

We also played.

12/05/1965 Chelsea beat Australian Capital Territory 7-0 in a friendly

15/05/1965 Chelsea beat Northern New South Wales 6-2 in a friendly

16/05/1965 Chelsea beat Victoria 1-0 in a friendly

19/05/1965 Chelsea beat Western Australia 6-1 in a friendly

22/05/1965 Chelsea beat South Australia 2-1 in a friendly

23/05/1965 Chelsea drew with Australian Select XI 2-2 in a friendly

26/05/1965 Chelsea beat Tasmania 12-0 in a friendly

30/05/1965 Chelsea drew with Australia World Cup XI 1-1 in a friendly

02/06/1965 Chelsea beat South Coast XI 1-0 in a friendly

06/06/1965 Chelsea beat Queensland 4-0 in a friendly

 

Thanks again to bounder.friardale for the tour  results.

I admit that I have posted these in other places, but just wanted to 'to put them all  together in one place.

 http://stamford-bridge.com/match.php?mid=2643&opp=Australian Capital Territory

Australian Capital Territory v Chelsea

Match Date: Wednesday, 12th May 1965
Competition: Friendly - Post Season
Opponent: Australian Capital Territory
Venue: Manuka Oval (Neutral Venue)
Attendance: 3,500
Half Time: 0 - 3
Result: Won 0 - 7

Team: Barron, Shellito, Harris, Hollins, Hinton (Mortimore), Boyle, Murray, Graham, Osgood, Venables, Tambling (Houseman) Goals: Graham 2 (6, 19), Tambling (9), Venables (49), Osgood (55), Hollins (80), Boyle (81) Referee: Keith Lockrey

not being old enough to remember osgood pre 1970 can someone tell us how quick he was (if at all). We all know what happened at blackpool  in 66 and that he put on two stone and was never quite the same player, but what was his style of play before then?