Chelsea Vs Portsmouth

Good Days and Bad Games

21^st May 63: W 7-0...Goalscorers: Venables, Blunstone, Kevan, Tambling 4

25^th Dec 57: W 7-4...Goalscorers: Sillett, Tindall, Greaves 4, OG

02^nd Apr 34: W 4-0...Goalscorers: Oakton, Mills, Gibson, Horton

27^th Nov 54: W 4-1...Goalscorers: McNichol, Stubbs, Bentley, Blunstone

28^th Dec 03: W 3-0...Goalscorers: Bridge, Lampard, Geremi

 

03^rd Sept 55: L 1-5...Goalscorer: O’ Connell

26^th Dec 50: L 1-4... Goalscorer: J Harris

05^th Nov 49: L 1-4...Goalscorer: Billington

26^th May 47: L 0-3

28^th Feb 25:  L 2-3...Goalscorers: Brown McNeil

Top appearances makers Vs Portsmouth: V Woodley 12, J Harris 13, P Sillett 9, A Craig 9, K Armstrong 20, S Bathgate 8, F Lampard 8, E Parsons 8, R Bentley 15, D Spence 10, F Blunstone 8.

On This Day: It’s 10^th Nov 1979 and in a week when the “ London Times” Newspaper resumes publishing after a year and Tony Franklin kicks a 59 yard field goal for the Philadelphia Eagles, Chelsea are sat on 999 League wins and we had to play Orient away. After two successive losses we managed to get that elusive win and take us on towards our next thousand wins. A crowd of only 13,005 saw Chelsea win a 10 goal thriller 3-7…People must have been too busy watching the classic TV Programs, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy & Wkrp in Cincinnati!!!! Our team that day was…Borota, Locke G., Wilkins, Bumstead, Pates, Chivers, Britton, Fillery, Frost, Walker, R Harris…Sub Hales…Goalscorers: Britton, Fillery, Frost 3, Walker 2

Unsung Hero:  This week’s Unsung is Dave Beasant. Some people would say this guy doesn’t deserve to be here, basically because everyone only remembers him for two of the three goals he let in Vs Norwich City in Sept 92. For those of you not sure what I’m on about the story goes something like this. We were winning 2-0 and ‘Lurch’ as he was affectionately known decided to let in two howlers and we ended up losing the game 2-3. On the back of this performance Porterfield opening his big gob by spouting off that Beasant would not play another game for Chelsea while he was in charge (which he didn’t). But before that fateful day Lurch had played 156 games for us and had a respectable 41 clean sheets (26%) and is tenth in our goalkeeping  stats for clean sheets, he even won 2 England Caps during his time at the Bridge. He also was a part of the teams that won promotion in  1989 and the Full Members Cup in 1990. By the end of his playing career Beasant had racked up a very impressive total of 897 games.

Flashback: After finishing 4^th in 1997-98 we were expecting to hopefully break the stranglehold that Man Utd & Arsenal had on the premier league. The 1998-99 season was probably one of Chelsea best ever years (for football played, (imho). We played with a lot of style and panache, and we were also very hard to beat. We had to improve on the previous season losses of 15 to have any chance of closing the gap on “the big two.” So our season started of at Coventry, who were a bit of a bogey team to us, and true to form we ended up losing to them 1-2, our next game was at home to Newcastle and we only managed to draw this 1-1, our next home game was also a draw Vs Arsenal 0-0, but in between these two games we had the Super Cup Final Vs Real Madrid, which we managed to win 1-0, with a late Gus Poyet volley. After the Arsenal game we went on a run in all competitions of not losing in 16 games, some notable results in there was the 0-5 mauling away at Arsenal in the League Cup, the classic 3-4 game at Blackburn and the 4-1 home win over Villa in the League Cup, more notable for the debut of some guy called John Terry, oh and of course that last minute foul by Wisey. We tasted defeat on Dec 1^st away to Wimbledon (mk dons) in the League Cup. We then went on another run through Christmas to the end of Jan 99 without defeat, until we came up against Arsenal at Highbury, we lost 1-0 in a very hard fought game, in this latest run of games we won 5 out of 6 when we came up against Oxford in the FA Cup, a game which was so one sided. We got a disputed penalty right at the end to save our blushes to take it to a replay but we didn’t deserve anything from this game and it wasn’t even a penalty!! Things were beginning to look rosy at the Bridge, Vialli had us playing some great football and we were up in the top 3 all season and we were also still in the ECWC. We then had a nice run of 6 wins in 7.But then we drew Man Utd in the Cup, after a 0-0 up there we thought win this and its another trip to the twin towers but the Mancs beat us 0-2 at home and that really upset the apple cart. After this tie we then lost to West Ham and even though were winning some we were drawing  way too many games which we not only should have won on paper but also on grass, games such as Middlesbrough away, 0-0 we were all over them just couldn’t score & Leicester City at Home 2-0 up and they came back to draw right at the end with a goal Steve Guppy could try a thousand times and it would never happen again, These 4 points, plus the loss at home to West Ham were to cost us our first title for 44 years. We got knocked out of the ECWC by a bunch of sunbathing Spaniards 2-1(agg) in the semi finals, on an island we all go to drink San Miguel not watch football! Even though we didn’t lose again after West Ham in the League we just couldn’t keep up with Man Utd and Arsenal, and by the season’s end we finish a disappointing 3^rd , 4 points off the top of the pile. Our WLD’S are as follows 20,15,3 gf 57, ga 30. Zola was our top goalscorer with 13 with Poyet close behind with 11.

A To Z of Chelsea FC:

H: Headhunters: Not something I like to write about but none the less they are apart of our history. The Headhunters were a hooligan element who were linked to Chelsea for many years, mainly the70’s & 80’s.They had big rivalries with other London teams and also had links to other white supremacist organizations such as combat 18, the National Front and the UDA.

S: Squads: In 1970 Chelsea used 12 players during the FA Cup final run, in 1997 we used 18 and in 2000 we used 22.

F: Floodlights: The first match to be played under the lights at the Bridge was a friendly Vs Sparta Prague. Chelsea won 2-0 with goals coming from L Allen and D Gibbs in front of a crowd of 30,701.

Games Played This Week in Past Years

22^nd Aug 98: D 1-1 (H) Newcastle Utd...Goalscorer...Babayaro...Att 34,795

23^rd Aug 67 D 1-1 (H) Newcastle Utd...Goalscorer...Baldwin...33,634

27^th Aug 52 D 1-1 (H) Derby County...J Harris...Att...34,467

Who Am I?

I was born in 1934

I signed for Chelsea from Aldershot in 1957

I was Defender

I played nearly 300 games for Chelsea

I scored just 10 goals for Chelsea

I later became a manager of Benfica and won 3 titles in a row & the double in 87

I was an Assistant Manager at Southampton when we won the Fa Cup in 76

I was known as Morty

Who Am I?

Last weeks answer: Adrian Mutu

Next week’s fixture: Aston Villa (away)

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

Archived History Lessons