Blackburn Rovers vs Chelsea

Good Days and Bad Games

Feb 13^th 65: W 0-3: Goalscorers... Murray, Bridges, Tambling

Oct 23^rd 76: W 0-2: Goalscorer...Finnieston 2

Dec 31^st 32: W 1-3: Goalscorers..Gallagher 2, Prout

Sept 11^th 02: W 2-3: Goalscorers...Gronkjaer, Zola 2

Sept 21^st 98: W 3-4: Goalscorers...Leboeuf, Zola, Flo 2

 

Oct 28^th 95: L 3-0

Dec 5^th 93: L 2-0

Sept 19^th 60: L 3-1: Goalscorer...Brabrook

Nov 14^th 14: L 2-3: Goalscorers...Halse, Thomson

Oct 21^st 33: L 2-4: Goalscorers...Gallagher, Gibson

On This Day: September 21^st 98 and With the minimum wage up to $5.15 and gas at only $1.12, it was no wonder Chelsea took a bunch of fans to the away game at Ewood Park. And boy were they in for a treat as Chelsea came from behind to win with 2 late Tore Andre Flo goals,3-4.in an incredible game where the lead changed 3 times Chelsea field a team of quality, yet we always had trouble at Blackburn, but not this time. The team that came away with all 3 points was…De Goey, Ferrer, Duberry, LeBoeuf, Le Saux, Desailly, Poyet, Wise, Babayaro, Zola, Casiraghi

Manager Profile: With just a few games left Eddie McCreadie was thrown in at the deep end, but alas he couldn’t save us from relegation. So Eddie’s first season in charge was in the 2^nd division. And that didn’t start off to well as we lost away at Sunderland. As a player he was a willing and enthusiastic full back who later became coach. Upon taking over Eddie Mac had to throw a lot of youngsters in to the first team as we had no money and unfortunately we didn’t get instant success and finished a disappointing 11^th.In 1976-77 we started the season with not one single penny being spent on transfers and by the time Christmas rolled around we had only lost two games, and on top of that we were also 6 points clear in division 2.We were playing some decent football, so much so that we pulled in a boxing day crowd of 55,003 Vs Fulham. By the end of the season Eddie Mac had gotten us promoted, just. We finished 3 points behind Wolves and three in front of Nottm Forest. But on July 1^st 1977 Eddie McCreadie resigned, a dispute of a contract was the given reason, but hearsay says it was all over a new Ford Escort. Chelsea’s future was looking bright under McCreadie, and no one will know how good that team could have been. Eddie McCreadie was in charge for 99 games, his WDL’s were...37, 33, 29, and a win percentage of 37% .Eddie was in charge from April 75-July 77.

Unsung Hero: Love him or loathe him, he saved Chelsea from becoming a nice apartment complex. Ken Bates was one who would never pull out of an argument, and was for a long time one of the most controversial figures in English Football. As we all know he saved the Bridge by buying it for a quid, but the long battles to actually keep us there went on and on. He re-united the freehold with Chelsea FC when Marler Estates began going into bankruptcy during a stock market crash. Also, during his time, apart from getting rid of 9 managers he also got rid of the hooligan element, even going as far as to put up electric fences. By the time Batesy left in 2004, and after paying just a pound for us, we were left with a debt of over $160 million. But he did save the Bridge, and as much as some people now dislike him, if it wasn’t for him you probably wouldn’t be reading this.

Flashback: It’s the first full season of the fifties and after two consecutive finishes of 13^th, things couldn’t get any worse, could they? We started the season at home to Sheffield Weds, we came away with a 4-0 win, in front of a crowd of over 48,000.That result in the middle of August was going to be as good as it gets as Chelsea went into a bit of a dip in form, as we went on a run of just 2 draws and 6 defeats in our next 8 games. Thankfully by the end of Sept we managed to pick up another home win against Everton. But going into October we lost another 3 games straight, one to the eventual champions Spurs. Again come the end of the month we put another run of 3 wins together, and again straight away we went and lost another 3 games after that. This took us up to the Christmas period, which in them days mean’s games every day, it wasn’t that bad in season 50-51 but we did have to play 3 games from the 23^rd to 26^th of December. At the start of 1951 we didn’t have a league game until Mid Jan, where we played the mighty Newcastle Utd, and we came away with a 3-1 home win. January and the beginning of February was mainly FA Cup games, and we eventually went out in a 5^th round replay to Fulham. Our league form was beginning to get worse and we had a bad run of results from Feb 3^rd right through to April 18^th. In that time we had played 13 games and only picked up 4 draws. By the time Mid April was upon us we seriously had to win, and being as we were in the lower regions of division one whoever we played were going to be above us. Our last 4 games consisted of 3 home games, Vs Wolves, Liverpool and Bolton, and one away game at Fulham. We managed to get 2 wins in 4 days against the first 2,then it was off to our neighbors, and again we got maximum points. With one match to go we needed to win to stay up, and thankfully we got a 4-0 win. We managed to stay up on goal difference, as it was then. We sent down Sheffield Weds and Everton, who both had the same amount of points as us. Our WDL’s were 12, 8, 22, GF 53, GA 65, Pts 32. Ken Armstrong was our top appearance maker with 40 from 42 starts, our top goalscorer was Bobby Smith with 7.Even though we didn’t play the best football we did attract an average crowd of 39,571, with the top gate being Vs Spurs, 65,992

Route to the Final: League Cup 1965

FA Cup Final 1970

Rd 3: Jan 3^rd: (H) Birmingham City: W 3-1...Goalscorers...Osgood, Hutchinson 2...Att 45,088

Rd 4: Jan 24^th: (H) Burnley D 2-2...Goalscorers...Osgood, Hollins...Att 42,282

Rd 4 Rep Jan 27^th (A) Burnley W 1-3(aet): Goalscorers...Baldwin, Houseman 2...Att 32,000

Rd 5 Feb 7^th  Crystal Palace (A) W 1-4...Goalscorers: Osgood, Dempsey, Houseman, Hutchinson...Att 48,479

Rd 6 Feb 21^st Queens Park Rangers (A) W 2-4...Goalscorers...Osgood 3, Webb...Att 33,572

Semi Final Mar 14^th Watford (WHL) W 5-1...Osgood, Houseman, 2, Webb, Hutchinson...Att 55,209

Final Apr 11^th Leeds Utd D 2-2 (Aet)...Goalscorers, Houseman, Hutchinson...Att 100,000

Final Replay Apr 29^th Leeds Utd (Old Trafford)   W 2-1...Goalscorers...Osgood, Webb...Att 62,078 

Games Played This Week in Past Years:

Dec 26^th 06 Vs Reading (H) D 2-2..Goalscorer: Drogba 2..Att 41,885

Dec 26^th 99 Vs Southampton (A) W 1-2...Goalscorer: Flo 2...Att 15,232

Dec 26^th 92 Vs Southampton (H) D 1-1...Goalscorer: Newton...Att 18,344

Who Am I?

I came through the Chelsea ranks

I played 10 times for the England u21 team during my time at the Bridge

I won a 2^nd division championship medal in 1989

I also won a league cup medal in 1998

I was a defender who could play in midfield

I scored the first goal in front of the newly named Matthew Harding Stand

Who Am I?

Last weeks answer: John Harley 

Next week’s fixture: Newcastle United (Home)

Click on the link below to see the Archived History Lessons.

Archived History Lessons