Whilst dreading what’s going to happen to us when ‘proper’ football resumes, my thoughts returned to better times and my all time hero, the one and only Peter Osgood who took over the mantle from the previous incumbent, Frank Blunstone. Of course, , there has been competition along the way, mainly from Zola and Hazard, but Ossie keeps the crown as far as I’m concerned.

Back in the day, we had an outstanding youth development programme, matched only by Man U who also produced multiple stars of the game. The matchday programme was always full of the successful exploits of our young stars so we kind of knew them well before they broke into the first team. Of course, many didn’t make the grade … in particular I remember two who were outstanding goal scorers for the youth and reserve teams and of whom great things were expected … Colin Shaw and Barry Smart, the latter I think, once scoring 7 or 8 goals in one game! I believe Colin did play a few games for the first team, but without much success, but I can’t recall Barry ever making an appearance.

I only mention this because we didn’t know anything about Ossie until he appeared … fully formed and ready to go! I can’t remember any anticipation or advance warning … he just started playing! In that breakthrough season he was something else and we were all in awe of what we saw and excited about what he was going to help produce for the team. He had it all - touch, skill, trickery, an eye for goal, awareness of the game and, of course, a more than passing acquaintance with the dark arts! (I think Jack Charlton would vouch for that!). He never had great pace, and certainly not after he broke his leg at Blackpool, courtesy of Emlyn Hughes. Only a week or so before that fatal match, he scored away to Man C and celebrated by taunting the home City fans with double-handed V-signs. Fans of other teams considered the broken leg to be the appropriate karma for this hostile behaviour. I remember the morning after the Blackpool match spotting a headline on the back page of someone’s newspaper - “Osgood Breaks Leg” … it was the worst headline for a Chelsea fan since -“ Greaves Wants a Transfer”.

I had the honour of meeting Ossie many years later … a long time after he stopped playing. Somehow one of our mates managed to get hold of the great man, or his ‘people’ and arranged for him to do a birthday greeting on video for another mate of ours, all Chelsea fans. The ‘shoot’ was arranged for a matchday at the Bridge at the time when Ossie was doing some hospitality work for the club. Although I was a father with kids of my own by this time I was still really excited and nervous to finally meet him, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist telling him how much he had meant to me growing up. We met on the concourse and he asked us if we’d like to do the filming on the pitch … would we??? So Ossie goes up to some sort of official and asks him if we can go on to the pitch … Peter Osgood, the king of Stamford Bridge having to ask permission from some jobsworth to set foot on the pitch that he graced for so many years! I was mortified!

Anyway, we do the interview… Ossie is great - “Hi, Keith, happy 40th. I hear you were a tough centre-half in your day …pleased I didn’t have to play against you …” all the stuff you’d expect, and the he ends up with this - “Some one asked me the other day how my Chelsea team would get on against the current team, and I told him we’d probably lose about 3-0 … really, said this bloke, why do you say that? Well, says Ossie, we are all over 50!”

Any other Ossie memories out there?

15 hours ago, OnePeterOsgood said:

Whilst dreading what’s going to happen to us when ‘proper’ football resumes, my thoughts returned to better times and my all time hero, the one and only Peter Osgood who took over the mantle from the previous incumbent, Frank Blunstone. Of course, , there has been competition along the way, mainly from Zola and Hazard, but Ossie keeps the crown as far as I’m concerned.

Back in the day, we had an outstanding youth development programme, matched only by Man U who also produced multiple stars of the game. The matchday programme was always full of the successful exploits of our young stars so we kind of knew them well before they broke into the first team. Of course, many didn’t make the grade … in particular I remember two who were outstanding goal scorers for the youth and reserve teams and of whom great things were expected … Colin Shaw and Barry Smart, the latter I think, once scoring 7 or 8 goals in one game! I believe Colin did play a few games for the first team, but without much success, but I can’t recall Barry ever making an appearance.

I only mention this because we didn’t know anything about Ossie until he appeared … fully formed and ready to go! I can’t remember any anticipation or advance warning … he just started playing! In that breakthrough season he was something else and we were all in awe of what we saw and excited about what he was going to help produce for the team. He had it all - touch, skill, trickery, an eye for goal, awareness of the game and, of course, a more than passing acquaintance with the dark arts! (I think Jack Charlton would vouch for that!). He never had great pace, and certainly not after he broke his leg at Blackpool, courtesy of Emlyn Hughes. Only a week or so before that fatal match, he scored away to Man C and celebrated by taunting the home City fans with double-handed V-signs. Fans of other teams considered the broken leg to be the appropriate karma for this hostile behaviour. I remember the morning after the Blackpool match spotting a headline on the back page of someone’s newspaper - “Osgood Breaks Leg” … it was the worst headline for a Chelsea fan since -“ Greaves Wants a Transfer”.

I had the honour of meeting Ossie many years later … a long time after he stopped playing. Somehow one of our mates managed to get hold of the great man, or his ‘people’ and arranged for him to do a birthday greeting on video for another mate of ours, all Chelsea fans. The ‘shoot’ was arranged for a matchday at the Bridge at the time when Ossie was doing some hospitality work for the club. Although I was a father with kids of my own by this time I was still really excited and nervous to finally meet him, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist telling him how much he had meant to me growing up. We met on the concourse and he asked us if we’d like to do the filming on the pitch … would we??? So Ossie goes up to some sort of official and asks him if we can go on to the pitch … Peter Osgood, the king of Stamford Bridge having to ask permission from some jobsworth to set foot on the pitch that he graced for so many years! I was mortified!

Anyway, we do the interview… Ossie is great - “Hi, Keith, happy 40th. I hear you were a tough centre-half in your day …pleased I didn’t have to play against you …” all the stuff you’d expect, and the he ends up with this - “Some one asked me the other day how my Chelsea team would get on against the current team, and I told him we’d probably lose about 3-0 … really, said this bloke, why do you say that? Well, says Ossie, we are all over 50!”

Any other Ossie memories out there?

Great memories there mate 👍

I remember his solo goal in our 2-6 home defeat to Saints in the 1960's.

He beat half their team and rounded the keeper to score. It made the score 1-3. It was an extraordinary goal and got a great ovation from everyone. In his book it says it was his best goal " up to then " . He scored a goal at an away ground that the home fans actually applauded. I think it might have been at Burnley.

Like you, I felt sick when I heard that he had broken his leg .

EDIT... I found this piece on that Ossie goal at Burnley..

Fan Reactions

Osgood's goal is remembered for its extraordinary skill and technique. Although only a limited number of fans saw it in person, the story of the goal has been passed down through generations, with many Burnley supporters recalling it as one of the best goals scored against their team.

Edited March 29Mar 29 by The Rising Sun
Info

In the days before widespread TV coverage, the repository of sensational goals was the memories of those present. At Turf Moor, a dwindling band of loyalists still recall one of the greatest goals they ever saw in January 1966 from Ossie, a few weeks shy of his 19th birthday.

As the Guardian reported: ‘Osgood obtained possession well inside his own half and embarked on a serpentine course towards the Burnley goal. He left Merrington, Talbot and Angus strewn in his wake and, as Blacklaw came out, drove it into the net with his left foot.’

Supposed to have lost pace after his broken leg, and become a bit more physical.

Saw him and Ron Harris in Stockholm for the Cup Winners Cup. They went out their on their own steam, with no connection to the club. Good craic, and a pair of gentlemen as you’d expect

Just read that it’s six years ago today, Peter Bonetti sadly passed away.

‘Some keeper!’

Just realised I’ve posted the above pics of The Cat in the wrong thread!

DOH!!

3 minutes ago, erskblue said:

Just realised I’ve posted the above pics of The Cat in the wrong thread!

DOH!!

1 hour ago, erskblue said:

What's this with a number 9 outjumping his opponent to head the ball over the keeper?

4 hours ago, Valerie said:

What's this with a number 9 outjumping his opponent to head the ball over the keeper?

I know, revolutionary isn’t it.

Here he scores in our 3-1 First Division win over Dirty Leeds at The Bridge, in March 1971.

58,452 saw it. Peter Houseman scored our other two goals.

www.chelseafc.com

Our commemoration of Peter Osgood two decades on from his passing continues here with a look at some of the stories he told in his autobiography...

When people think of the late-Sixties and early-Seventies Chelsea, Ossie captures its style, swagger, and, ultimately, its self-destructiveness. He remains the club’s fifth-highest goal scorer with 150 from 380 appearances and played a huge part in winning two major trophies, but his talent warranted a better reward than a handful of England caps and three medals earned with the Blues and Southampton.

It is the more vulnerable moments that make the brash player’s memoir Ossie – King of Stamford Bridge (Mainstream, 2002) intriguing, however. Chief among these is his early experience of the broken leg sustained during a League Cup third-round tie at Division Two Blackpool on 5 October 1966.

Ossie was one of several former youth-team players breaking into Tommy Docherty’s ‘Diamonds’ team. He was 19, lithe, athletic, fast – dribbling past defenders like an eel through reeds – with six goals in 12 appearances that season.

Ossie became accustomed to the rough and tumble of English football in the Sixties and Seventies

‘Their confident young defender Emlyn Hughes was on my case right from the start,’ the striker recalled, ‘and after he tackled me from behind I was determined to give him a kick back just to show him I was no pushover.

‘The chance came as we both raced towards a 50/50 ball. Our legs crunched. I heard it, Emlyn heard it, and the crowd heard it as the bone above my ankle snapped. The crowd had fallen silent in anticipation of the tackle and as my leg splintered the sickening noise seemed to reverberate around the ground. I imagined everyone closing their eyes and wincing as one.

‘Putting my hand down to my leg, I could feel the bone through my sock and I waved weakly for help. Emlyn picked himself up and walked away without a glance behind him. Our players shouted and swore at him but he didn’t respond. Norman Medhurst, son of trainer Harry, was with us that day and he knelt down beside me and cradled my left leg. “Does it hurt Ossie?”

‘“No Norman, you’ve got the wrong leg”.’

Noting ‘many a player has not come back from a broken leg due to badly set breaks', Osgood wrote: ‘I was operated on that night, put in plaster, dosed up with painkillers and fit enough to join the players and officials on the train journey back to London in the morning. Throughout the ordeal I had not removed my Chelsea shirt.’

Osgood recovered from his injury and scored well over 100 more goals for the Blues

Doubts about his future and immobility during an eight-month recuperation hit him hard and he turned to the bottle, losing the slim physique of the teenage forward. Against advice, he played golf still in plaster and reopened the break. And he fretted when Docherty bought another striker, Tony Hateley, acting rashly.

‘Insecurity ate away inside of me,’ he revealed. ‘At one point I called a national newspaper and told them I thought I could never fit into the Chelsea side again.’

He was angling for another club to come in for him. ‘The only manager that called,’ Ossie revealed, ‘was Tommy Doc himself, demanding to know what I was playing at. “Why are you saying things like that to the papers?”’

Thankfully Ossie did return for the Blues; a different, less balletic player, but powerful, canny, and still a delight to watch. He and new manager Dave Sexton were polar opposites, but the player respected the coach.

Ossie remembered vital pep-talks, such as before extra time at Wembley, with the 1970 FA Cup final in the balance.

‘You’ve got ’em now,’ Sexton enthused. ‘Look at them. They thought they had it and we snatched it from them. Their heads are down. You’re in the driving seat, believe me.’

The game finished 2-2 but Osgood was impressed. ‘I think if Dave hadn’t geed us up in the way he did, Leeds would have gone straight through us in that added period,’ he wrote.

Osgood (No.9) rising high at Wembley in the 1970 FA Cup final

The manager held off the battle talk during half-time of the replay that followed at Old Trafford, though, despite Leeds’ 1-0 advantage.

‘We didn’t need lifting,’ remembered Osgood. ‘It was all what they had done to us, and what we would do to them. There was a myth at the time that Jackie Charlton had a little black book with the names of players in, players he was waiting to damage in some way.

‘"When I score," I said to anyone that might have been listening, “I’m going to rip his black book off him and laugh in his face as I write my name in it.”’

Half an hour later, Osgood’s iconic diving header restored parity, before Dave Webb scored the winner. Charlton, black book and all, slunk away without collecting his medal.

Osgood's iconic diving header

Sexton was, though, often infuriated by his brilliant squad’s lifestyle choices. ‘We had our reputation as social animals and we liked to live up to it,’ Osgood admitted. ‘Many a time we’d be discussing which nightclub or pub to move on to when players from other teams would be shaking their heads and wondering why we were not going home to our wives.’

Nevertheless, the team bonding was exceptional, and celebrity patronage added to the sensation. ‘I walked into the dressing room one Saturday after a match,’ Ossie recalled, ‘and I saw Eddie Mac [McCreadie] sitting on the bench. His glasses were perched on the end of his nose, he was puffing on a cigarette and in deep conversation with a familiar-looking man dressed smartly in a polo neck and slacks. “Ossie, this is Steve McQueen”.’

Such was Osgood’s Chelsea – the most intoxicating of clubs.

By Rick Glanvill, first published in 2019

On 26/04/2026 at 07:50, erskblue said:

www.chelseafc.com

Our commemoration of Peter Osgood two decades on from his passing continues here with a look at some of the stories he told in his autobiography...

When people think of the late-Sixties and early-Seventies Chelsea, Ossie captures its style, swagger, and, ultimately, its self-destructiveness. He remains the club’s fifth-highest goal scorer with 150 from 380 appearances and played a huge part in winning two major trophies, but his talent warranted a better reward than a handful of England caps and three medals earned with the Blues and Southampton.

It is the more vulnerable moments that make the brash player’s memoir Ossie – King of Stamford Bridge (Mainstream, 2002) intriguing, however. Chief among these is his early experience of the broken leg sustained during a League Cup third-round tie at Division Two Blackpool on 5 October 1966.

Ossie was one of several former youth-team players breaking into Tommy Docherty’s ‘Diamonds’ team. He was 19, lithe, athletic, fast – dribbling past defenders like an eel through reeds – with six goals in 12 appearances that season.

Ossie became accustomed to the rough and tumble of English football in the Sixties and Seventies

‘Their confident young defender Emlyn Hughes was on my case right from the start,’ the striker recalled, ‘and after he tackled me from behind I was determined to give him a kick back just to show him I was no pushover.

‘The chance came as we both raced towards a 50/50 ball. Our legs crunched. I heard it, Emlyn heard it, and the crowd heard it as the bone above my ankle snapped. The crowd had fallen silent in anticipation of the tackle and as my leg splintered the sickening noise seemed to reverberate around the ground. I imagined everyone closing their eyes and wincing as one.

‘Putting my hand down to my leg, I could feel the bone through my sock and I waved weakly for help. Emlyn picked himself up and walked away without a glance behind him. Our players shouted and swore at him but he didn’t respond. Norman Medhurst, son of trainer Harry, was with us that day and he knelt down beside me and cradled my left leg. “Does it hurt Ossie?”

‘“No Norman, you’ve got the wrong leg”.’

Noting ‘many a player has not come back from a broken leg due to badly set breaks', Osgood wrote: ‘I was operated on that night, put in plaster, dosed up with painkillers and fit enough to join the players and officials on the train journey back to London in the morning. Throughout the ordeal I had not removed my Chelsea shirt.’

Osgood recovered from his injury and scored well over 100 more goals for the Blues

Doubts about his future and immobility during an eight-month recuperation hit him hard and he turned to the bottle, losing the slim physique of the teenage forward. Against advice, he played golf still in plaster and reopened the break. And he fretted when Docherty bought another striker, Tony Hateley, acting rashly.

‘Insecurity ate away inside of me,’ he revealed. ‘At one point I called a national newspaper and told them I thought I could never fit into the Chelsea side again.’

He was angling for another club to come in for him. ‘The only manager that called,’ Ossie revealed, ‘was Tommy Doc himself, demanding to know what I was playing at. “Why are you saying things like that to the papers?”’

Thankfully Ossie did return for the Blues; a different, less balletic player, but powerful, canny, and still a delight to watch. He and new manager Dave Sexton were polar opposites, but the player respected the coach.

Ossie remembered vital pep-talks, such as before extra time at Wembley, with the 1970 FA Cup final in the balance.

‘You’ve got ’em now,’ Sexton enthused. ‘Look at them. They thought they had it and we snatched it from them. Their heads are down. You’re in the driving seat, believe me.’

The game finished 2-2 but Osgood was impressed. ‘I think if Dave hadn’t geed us up in the way he did, Leeds would have gone straight through us in that added period,’ he wrote.

Osgood (No.9) rising high at Wembley in the 1970 FA Cup final

The manager held off the battle talk during half-time of the replay that followed at Old Trafford, though, despite Leeds’ 1-0 advantage.

‘We didn’t need lifting,’ remembered Osgood. ‘It was all what they had done to us, and what we would do to them. There was a myth at the time that Jackie Charlton had a little black book with the names of players in, players he was waiting to damage in some way.

‘"When I score," I said to anyone that might have been listening, “I’m going to rip his black book off him and laugh in his face as I write my name in it.”’

Half an hour later, Osgood’s iconic diving header restored parity, before Dave Webb scored the winner. Charlton, black book and all, slunk away without collecting his medal.

Osgood's iconic diving header

Sexton was, though, often infuriated by his brilliant squad’s lifestyle choices. ‘We had our reputation as social animals and we liked to live up to it,’ Osgood admitted. ‘Many a time we’d be discussing which nightclub or pub to move on to when players from other teams would be shaking their heads and wondering why we were not going home to our wives.’

Nevertheless, the team bonding was exceptional, and celebrity patronage added to the sensation. ‘I walked into the dressing room one Saturday after a match,’ Ossie recalled, ‘and I saw Eddie Mac [McCreadie] sitting on the bench. His glasses were perched on the end of his nose, he was puffing on a cigarette and in deep conversation with a familiar-looking man dressed smartly in a polo neck and slacks. “Ossie, this is Steve McQueen”.’

Such was Osgood’s Chelsea – the most intoxicating of clubs.

By Rick Glanvill, first published in 2019

On 26/04/2026 at 07:50, erskblue said:

www.chelseafc.com

Our commemoration of Peter Osgood two decades on from his passing continues here with a look at some of the stories he told in his autobiography...

When people think of the late-Sixties and early-Seventies Chelsea, Ossie captures its style, swagger, and, ultimately, its self-destructiveness. He remains the club’s fifth-highest goal scorer with 150 from 380 appearances and played a huge part in winning two major trophies, but his talent warranted a better reward than a handful of England caps and three medals earned with the Blues and Southampton.

It is the more vulnerable moments that make the brash player’s memoir Ossie – King of Stamford Bridge (Mainstream, 2002) intriguing, however. Chief among these is his early experience of the broken leg sustained during a League Cup third-round tie at Division Two Blackpool on 5 October 1966.

Ossie was one of several former youth-team players breaking into Tommy Docherty’s ‘Diamonds’ team. He was 19, lithe, athletic, fast – dribbling past defenders like an eel through reeds – with six goals in 12 appearances that season.

Ossie became accustomed to the rough and tumble of English football in the Sixties and Seventies

‘Their confident young defender Emlyn Hughes was on my case right from the start,’ the striker recalled, ‘and after he tackled me from behind I was determined to give him a kick back just to show him I was no pushover.

‘The chance came as we both raced towards a 50/50 ball. Our legs crunched. I heard it, Emlyn heard it, and the crowd heard it as the bone above my ankle snapped. The crowd had fallen silent in anticipation of the tackle and as my leg splintered the sickening noise seemed to reverberate around the ground. I imagined everyone closing their eyes and wincing as one.

‘Putting my hand down to my leg, I could feel the bone through my sock and I waved weakly for help. Emlyn picked himself up and walked away without a glance behind him. Our players shouted and swore at him but he didn’t respond. Norman Medhurst, son of trainer Harry, was with us that day and he knelt down beside me and cradled my left leg. “Does it hurt Ossie?”

‘“No Norman, you’ve got the wrong leg”.’

Noting ‘many a player has not come back from a broken leg due to badly set breaks', Osgood wrote: ‘I was operated on that night, put in plaster, dosed up with painkillers and fit enough to join the players and officials on the train journey back to London in the morning. Throughout the ordeal I had not removed my Chelsea shirt.’

Osgood recovered from his injury and scored well over 100 more goals for the Blues

Doubts about his future and immobility during an eight-month recuperation hit him hard and he turned to the bottle, losing the slim physique of the teenage forward. Against advice, he played golf still in plaster and reopened the break. And he fretted when Docherty bought another striker, Tony Hateley, acting rashly.

‘Insecurity ate away inside of me,’ he revealed. ‘At one point I called a national newspaper and told them I thought I could never fit into the Chelsea side again.’

He was angling for another club to come in for him. ‘The only manager that called,’ Ossie revealed, ‘was Tommy Doc himself, demanding to know what I was playing at. “Why are you saying things like that to the papers?”’

Thankfully Ossie did return for the Blues; a different, less balletic player, but powerful, canny, and still a delight to watch. He and new manager Dave Sexton were polar opposites, but the player respected the coach.

Ossie remembered vital pep-talks, such as before extra time at Wembley, with the 1970 FA Cup final in the balance.

‘You’ve got ’em now,’ Sexton enthused. ‘Look at them. They thought they had it and we snatched it from them. Their heads are down. You’re in the driving seat, believe me.’

The game finished 2-2 but Osgood was impressed. ‘I think if Dave hadn’t geed us up in the way he did, Leeds would have gone straight through us in that added period,’ he wrote.

Osgood (No.9) rising high at Wembley in the 1970 FA Cup final

The manager held off the battle talk during half-time of the replay that followed at Old Trafford, though, despite Leeds’ 1-0 advantage.

‘We didn’t need lifting,’ remembered Osgood. ‘It was all what they had done to us, and what we would do to them. There was a myth at the time that Jackie Charlton had a little black book with the names of players in, players he was waiting to damage in some way.

‘"When I score," I said to anyone that might have been listening, “I’m going to rip his black book off him and laugh in his face as I write my name in it.”’

Half an hour later, Osgood’s iconic diving header restored parity, before Dave Webb scored the winner. Charlton, black book and all, slunk away without collecting his medal.

Osgood's iconic diving header

Sexton was, though, often infuriated by his brilliant squad’s lifestyle choices. ‘We had our reputation as social animals and we liked to live up to it,’ Osgood admitted. ‘Many a time we’d be discussing which nightclub or pub to move on to when players from other teams would be shaking their heads and wondering why we were not going home to our wives.’

Nevertheless, the team bonding was exceptional, and celebrity patronage added to the sensation. ‘I walked into the dressing room one Saturday after a match,’ Ossie recalled, ‘and I saw Eddie Mac [McCreadie] sitting on the bench. His glasses were perched on the end of his nose, he was puffing on a cigarette and in deep conversation with a familiar-looking man dressed smartly in a polo neck and slacks. “Ossie, this is Steve McQueen”.’

Such was Osgood’s Chelsea – the most intoxicating of clubs.

By Rick Glanvill, first published in 2019

His description of the broken leg incident is horrific. . Good post, thanks👍

"Osgood is good" was the earliest shout or chant i can remember. Probably around 1967-1968 for me.