For the first time
in my life I’m questioning whether I love football more than Chelsea FC. Of
course I do appreciate how ridiculous that sounds; that such a question has no
place in the life of a healthy and happy grown-up, but hey, that’s testicles
for you.
The most exciting
season in the history of the Premiership was heading to a conclusion. Chelsea
were playing away at the footballing cathedral that is Anfield. Liverpool as a
city was enveloped in emotional hysteria for the 96 dead at Hillsborough, fired
up by a team flying high, playing beautiful flowing football towards the
phenomenal goal-scoring partnership of Daniel Sturridge and arguably the finest
striker on the planet, Luis Suarez.
The Chelsea
manager, Jose Mourinho, is a brilliant tactician. Scrupulously, he plans and
prepares like no other in the game. Sadly, his forte
is ‘not losing’. From the first minute of that match against Liverpool it was
clear that Chelsea’s players had been instructed to waste time.
Yes, they defended
with great discipline, but that’s how Chelsea beat both European giants
Barcelona and Bayern Munich.
Yes, they beat
Liverpool, 0-2 at Anfield, in a famous victory.
But there it is,
in plain words. I just typed ‘they’ in reference to Chelsea. A subconscious
choice which not very long ago would have been ‘we’.
Time wasting from
the start? Chelsea?
More than likely
you’re simply delighted to have your TV schedules back. Have you spent a
miserable six months flipping the channel-up button on your remote, muttering
out loud to yourself “Football, football, bloody football! Why don’t they show
any dramas? What about a good comedy? Is that too much to ask?”
No, my grumpy
friend, it is not. To enjoy all of the above, simply abandon your channel
surfing and watch the football instead. The Beautiful Game can satisfy those
needs and add a touch of poetry too.
If only you better
understood what you just missed. This season was phenomenal.
Cue twinkly-dinkly
harpy music and wavy TV screen. Husky male voice:
“Previously on The
Premiership...”
In a land not very
far away at all, the Very Ancient King from the Very Far North, victor of
countless battles leading the United Clan of the Not Really North stood down
from his throne.
To replace him he called upon the blue-eyed Younger King of the
Blue Not Really North But By The Sea Clan. Like the purple-nosed Very Ancient
King, this young pretender was also from the Very Far North.
Unfortunately for
the United Clan of the Not Really North, that was where the comparisons ended.
A new time was born: a time for all who had suffered under the rule of the Very
Ancient King to rise up, to fight back ... to make amends ...
Thrones were
dangerous seats to sit upon this season. Only 11 of the 20 managers that
started the Premiership survived in their jobs. Chelsea started this trend 10
years ago, when money arrived in the shape of oligarch owner Roman Abramovich,
alongside power in the handsome charismatic style of Jose Mourinho.
The
capricious entity that had previously been Chelsea FC, a vagabond collection of
footballing artists and piss artists who played brilliantly one day and just
couldn’t be bothered the next, turned into a corporate entity.
All that corporate
entities require is results. Yes, it was great to win back to back League
titles - brilliant! - but now I sit and cringe as a Chelsea fan.
Yet my love for
football grows. Away from all the hyperbole of insane wages and grown men
falling over far too easily, I cannot remember a season that I have enjoyed as
much as this one. The fact that Chelsea won nothing at all doesn’t bother me in
the least. That might sound strange. To be honest, I’m a bit confused myself.
My bonds with
Chelsea were attached to a series of shared experiences with my father, setting
them firmly in reinforced emotional concrete. I will live and
die a Chelsea fan, even though my loyalty has been sorely tested this year. Happily, as they
say in footballing parlance, “Hat ve hend ov da day, Brian, football was da
winna dis year!”
Alongside
Liverpool, Manchester City delivered exquisite football, both teams scoring
over 100 goals in the 38 games, and I am delighted that City won the league:
they were the best team. Liverpool absolutely deserved to come second, and
along with these two great footballing sides there was so much to love this
year.
There was the
miracle of Sunderland, where like a latterday Moses, Gus Poyet took over a
dejected dressing room from demented manager Paolo di Canio and delivered the
Black Cats from the bottom of the table to the Promised Land of Safety.
The top of the
table changed 25 times. Every single match mattered throughout, yet the very
best thing about the Premiership is that even when it doesn’t matter, teams
play their hearts out. No other league in the world offers the passion shown by
lowly Crystal Palace, also playing Liverpool, on a night now known as
‘Crystanbul’.
0-3 down to the
Champions-elect, the home crowd roared in a frenzy of support and Palace
manager Tony Pulis injected pure passion into players who had nothing to play
for but pride.
Lo, the score became 3-3. Every lover of football felt proud.
So sport haters,
football offers you Game of Thrones drama, political thrillers, crime, sex and
soaps, but my favourite moment of the season was pure comedy.
Sitting on a bar
stool in Sweeney’s Village Inn, Killala, I wore a smile the size of the equator
as Chelsea beat the Gooners (Arsenal) 6-0.
Such is the cult
of personality prevalent in the Premiership, that with the Arsenal manager’s
job contract under discussion, BT Sport billed the game not ‘Chelsea v Arsenal’
but:
“Mourinho v Wenger !”
As the goals piled
up, the Chelsea fans started to sing:
“Arsene Wenger ...
we want you to stay!”
©Charlie Adley
17.05.14
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