THIS WEEK'S FIXTURE - -Chelsea Vs Tottenham Hotspur:  So our only long standing record left against this lot is our unbeaten home record. We haven’t lost to Rottenham at home in the league since Feb 1990 losing 1-2.Anyway our record against that other team from North London at home is not to bad, we have played them a total of 57 times at the Bridge winning 28,drawing 12 & losing 17,our goals tally is 84 for & 68 against. As for past results our best win over Rottenham was an 8-1 thrashing way back in Dec1915, it wasn’t a league game it was another one of those London Combination games that were played due to the War, but I’ll take it. As for defeats, we have been beat on the odd occasion by quite a hefty margin, two results were in Oct 1920 & Sept 33 when we lost 0-4 in both games, which were watch by colossus crowds of 76,000 & 67, 454, as for high scoring draws they don’t get better than 2-2 the last being in Aug 68 with Osgood & Birchenall getting the goals in front of a “flower in their hair” wearing crowd of 48,412.

Recent Stats: The recent stats this week will be going back from the start of this incredible run we have enjoyed against Rottenham.Since the first game in this run at the Bridge was in Dec 90. We have played them a total of 17 times, drawn 5 and won 12, our goals for are 42 and against a paltry 13.So the season I’m going to check out this week is the season when we won 1-6 at their place and that was season 97-98.This season we finished really well, in 4^th placed but as for our opponents there finished way way down in 14^th, with the likes of Leeds, Derby, Leicester, Coventry & Southampton between us. We had a decent home record this year, winning 13,and by checking when we scored most of our goals I think Gullit must have had the fitness coach in as we scored 36(out of 71) of our goals between minutes 61-90.As for league positions, we started off at 14^th but after the first home game Vs Southampton (The first game with the new shed opened) we never went lower than 5^th.Our Ground capacity then was 33,400  and our average gate was 33,387,best gate was 34,845 which again I don’t know how we got that many in when the capacity is only 33,400.Our top League scorers were Flo and Vialli both with 11. 

 

 

 

Games from this week in years gone by:

Apr 13^th 68 Vs Tottenham (H) W 2-0...Goalscorers...Houseman, Baldwin...Att 53,049

Apr 13^th 74 Vs Arsenal (H) L 1-3...Goalscorer...Swain...Att 29,152

Apr 13^th 96 Vs Leeds Utd (H) 4-1...Goalscorers... Spencer, Hughes 3...Att 21,131

CHELSEA LEGEND: This week’s legend is none other than the goal machine himself Jimmy Greaves. What can I write about the most prolific scorer (goals per game) in Chelsea’s history. Greavesy joined us as a youth from Lakeside Manor Boys club and promptly broke every scoring record in the youth and reserve teams; he made his debut for us at Spurs on Aug 24^th 57 and scored in a 1-1 draw. By the end of his first season in which he played 35 games he had banged in a decent 22 goals, not bad for a 17 year old!!! The following season he played the full quota of 42 games and scored 32 times, 59-60 he got just 29 goals in 40, but in 60-61 he actually scored more goals than games played in, scoring 41 in 40 games, this was his last season at Chelsea and as a sign off he scored all 4 goals in a 4-3 win over Nottingham Forest. In just 169 games he netted an incredible 132 times. He was one of a very small list of players who has scored on his debut for every club and at every level. He had scored his 100^th League goal by the age of 20.Greavesy left Chelsea to play in Italy but alas that didn’t work out for him and he found himself at some North London club. He also netted 44 goals in 57 international for England. He is also one of four players to score 5 goals in a league game, he actually done it 3 times. He also scored in 5 successive England games but he didn’t get 1 goal in each, in total he scored 11 times. After playing in North London and East London, he started playing non league football for Barnet Utd and Woodford, by 1976 after a long battle with alcohol Jimmy decided to retire. He wrote a great autobiography titled “this one’s on me” which if you get the chance to read please do as it is the most honest autobiography I have read. In the 80’s Greavesy had become a lovable TV pundit on ITV, as for now, he was made an inaugural inductee to the Football hall of fame in 2002 and he is very much in demand as an after dinner speaker. Jimmy Greaves a true Chelsea great and a true ....CHELSEA LEGEND! 

QUIZ QUESTIONS:

LAST WEEK’S ANSWERS:

1: The only person to captain England and managed a team in a European cup final is Jimmy Armfield in 1975 with Leeds
2: The only team with 11 different letters with no repeats is Grimsby Town 

THIS WEEK’S QUESTIONS

1: Name 4 players who have played for 4 teams who have won the European Cup but never won it themselves
2: Everyone knows Trevor Francis was the first million pound player, but who was the first two million pound player?

Until Next Time Then…….Cheerio!  Tel

NEXT WEEK’S LESSON IS Man Utd