Wigan Athletic Vs Chelsea

Good Days and Bad Games

Dec 23^rd 06: W 2-3: Goalscorers...Lampard, Kalou, Robben

Aug 14^th 05: W 0-1: Goalscorer...Crespo

No defeats

Manager Profile: Tommy Docherty started his Chelsea career as a player, admittedly he only played 4 games but none the less. He then became our player coach, from Oct 61 before finally taking over as Manager of the first team in Jan 1962.strangely his first game in charge as a coach was a heavy defeat, 5-3 at Sheff Weds, his first game in charge as a Manager was a 4-3 win at Fulham. Unfortunately Doc couldn’t keep us in the top flight, so the rebuilding had to start in the second tier, and his style of football had us back in the first Division in only one season. The following season,63/64 Doc had us playing some pretty flamboyant football and with this new style and panache we finished a very credible 5^th.The following season Doc got us to our first major Cup final appearance since the 1915,taking us onto and winning the League cup. He also got us to a FA Cup Semi Final and a top 3 finish, all in the same 1964/65 season. In season 65/66 again we had a top 5 finish and also another appearance in the FA Cup semi final, we also made the Inter Cities (UEFA) fairs cup semi final. It was said that Docherty’s team were continually falling at the final hurdle, this made Docherty relentless in his pursuit for glory and by the following season, 66/67 we had finally made to it to the FA Cup Final. But there was clouds gathering under the Docherty regime, with His coach Dave Sexton moving over to East London to become Orient Manager and the death of his long time mentor Joe Mears. During the Close season Docherty and “his little diamonds” were on tour in Bermuda, something happened, which the FA were not to happy about, so they suspended Doc for a month. The new Chairman was beginning to lost patience with Doc and on Oct 6^th 67 he handed in his resignation, and an exciting era in the history of Chelsea FC had come to a close. Doc’s record was as follows…Games 303,Won 142,Drew 65,Lost 96, a win percentage of 47%.

On This Day: It’s April 19^th 1975 and with football violence at its peak Chelsea had a relegation clash with Our Big Rivals Spurs. We had come off a run of 1 win in 7 games and we were on our way down to Division 2, if we could beat Spurs not only would it help us out but it could put a big dent in Spurs’ chance of staying up. Unfortunately amongst all the violence going on inside the ground we surrendered very easily losing 2-0 in front of a hostile crowd of 51,064. Sending us down .Our team that day was …Phillips, Locke, Sparrow, Britton, Harris, Garland, Hay, R Wilkins, Maybank, Hutchinson, Cooke …Sub Garner

Unsung Hero: This week’s isn’t so much an unsung more a 15 minutes of fame. Danny Granville really was in the right place at the right time, he joined us from Cambridge in Mar 97 for 300,000gbp and spent just 5 months at Chelsea, but in that time he managed to grab himself League Cup and Ecwc winning medals. We later sold him for a decent profit to the very gullible Leeds for 1.3 million gbp. Granville played just 26 times, 7 as a sub and scored 1 goal.

Flashback: After running amuck in the Second Division in 83/84 this season was all about consolidation and our first game couldn’t have been more difficult, Arsenal away. With the clock end completely packed King Kerry pounced on a loose ball in the area and in it went 1-0,the Chelsea fans were going absolutely mental, we had arrived!!,alas Arsenal got one back to draw 1-1 but none the less we were on our way and realized we could hold our own with the Big Boys. Our other 2 games in Aug brought us a win and a loss to Sunderland and Everton respectively. Sept was indifferent in the fact that we won at home and couldn’t win away. Infact we didn’t let a goal in a home until our 2-3 loss to Watford in Mid October. Again through much of October and November it was winning at home, nothing much away, apart from the odd draw. We did slap Coventry with a 6-2 win in early Nov, with goals from King Kerry grabbing a hat trick, Speedie and K Jones 2 completing the scoring. It’s December and we  get a early Christmas Prezzie with an away win at eventual Champions Everton 3-4 with Gordon Davies get 3.Our next win was a 1-0 Vs Forest on New Years Day, that being our only win in the league in January, however we did beat Wigan in a replay 5-0 in the FA Cup. We were making strides in the league cup and had ended the month with “that classic” 4-4 with Sheff Weds. February only saw one win in the league, we finally got rid of Sheff Weds, but we also lost to Millwall in the Cup. We had the small matter of a two legged semi final with Sunderland. We lost the first leg on a cold and rather windy night at Roker Park 2-0, but all was not lost as we had already beaten them earlier in the season. March didn’t start to well as we lost our first two league games to Ipswich and Southampton, both by the same 2-0 scoreline, but sandwiched between these two games was the second leg of the League Cup Semi Final. But one of our old heroes, Clive Walker was to become the Villain of the night when he scored the winner in a 3-2 loss. The final was between two teams who got relegated that season, with Norwich coming out top. That result kind of Kicked Chelsea into gear and we went on a run to the end of the season of winning 8 of the last 13.We Finished the season in an impressive 6^th.Our WDL’s were 18, 12, 12, GF 63, GA 48..PTS 66.Spackman was our top appearance maker playing in all 55 games, King Kerry was top goalscorer with 36 goals in 53 games. Our player of the year was David Speedie. Our average attendance was just 23,061 with the best attended game being 42,197 Vs the Mancs.

Route To The Final:

Fa Cup Final 1915:

 Rd 1: Swindon (h) D 1-1...Goalscorer...Thomson...Att 28,000

Rd 1 Rep:  Swindon# (a) W 2-5...Goalscorers...Ford, Thomson 3, McNeil...Att 18,610

Rd 2: Woolwich Arsenal (h) W 1-0...Goalscorer...Halse...Att 40,372

Rd 3: Manchester City (a) W 1-0...Goalscorer...Thomson...Att 39, 000

Rd 4 Newcastle Utd (h) D 1-1*...Goalscorer...Thomson...Att 58,760

Rd 4 Rep: Newcastle Utd (a) W 0-1*..Goalscorer..Ford..Att 49,827

Semi Final; Everton (*) W2-0...Goalscorers...Halse, Coral...Att 22,000

Final Sheffield Utd (@) L 0-3..Att 49,557

# played at Stamford Bridge by arrangement, (*) played at Villa Park

* After extra time, (@) played at Old Trafford

Cup Final Team: Molyneux, Betteridge, Harrow(c), Taylor, Logan, Walker, Ford, Halse, Thomson, Croal, McNeil.

Games Played This Week in Past Years:

Nov 7^th 14: Vs Bolton (H) W 2-1...Goalscorers...Halse, Thomson...Att 24,000

Nov 4^th 00: Vs Southampton (A) L 3-2...Goalscorers...Wise, Poyet...Att 15,326

Nov 1^st 69: Vs Coventry (H) W 1-0...Goalscorer...Cooke...Att 38,899

Who Am I?

I was born in Fife, Scotland in May 56

I was signed by Chelsea from Aberdeen

I was bought for 150,000gbp

I played 100 times and scored 3 goals

I won a bunch of medals north of the border

I only won the full members cup at Chelsea

I was a no nonsense type of player

I left in June 87 for Brighton

Who Am I?

Last weeks answer: Ian “Chico” Hamilton

Next week’s fixture: Everton (Home)

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

Archived History Lessons