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Chelsea - Abramovich sanctioned (p9)

edited March 2022 in Other Football and Sports
They may have the best team in the country, but I just can't take them seriously as a club. A club with no great history that have bought their way to success with dirty money. If dopey-faced Roman had decided that Spurs was a better place to invest in his anti-arrest scheme, then Chelsea would be nowhere. Their fans seem to be a weird mish-mash of myopic school kids, plastic wannabes, middle-aged bovver boys endlessly prattling on about chopper and the shed, b-list 'celebrities' who think that an association with football will make them adorable to ordinary people and city broker types who think that bellowing at a pub tv once a fortnight qualifies them as working class. They are Millwall with money.

I don't really like Arsenal, Liverpool or Man Utd, but at least when they win (or perhaps won) things there's not any doubt that they are proper clubs. And although Man City bought their success similarly to Chelsea, there's at least a feeling that they have a fan base that is committed and loyal and watches football for the right reasons.

Now I'm sure that if any Chelsea fan were to read this, they'd think it was just sour grapes. They'd probably also sneer at me for supporting Charlton, whilst claiming that they don't have a great history. But it's not all about winning at any price. It's not about nailing your colours to the mast of a winning team. I don't begrudge them their league win, it's just that there's something about them that is 100% genuine fake and it's not for me.
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Comments

  • A club with three FA Cups, a league title and three European honours (I'm young and don't know what they might correspond to by the way) before Abramovich. That's at least a bit of a history - more than the majority of other clubs in the FL92 I'd say.

    I know a few Chelsea fans, and to my great surprise all but one of them have supported them since before Abramovich. They're alright guys. Obviously there's a lot of ill feeling from me toward the whole dirty oil money thing, but you can't deny they're a good football team that does happen to play good football at times. Hazard is one of my favourite players to watch.

    I agree with your general sentiment Stig, but think you're being a bit too harsh on them.
  • Anyone who claims to be a Chelsea fan, yet is not from the area, is basically saying they have no real interest in football
  • Well, I'm a Charlton fan but you nailed it. This is sour grapes.
  • edited May 2015
    The Abramovitch era leaves me cold personally, and I know exactly what you mean Stig.
    But they were a decent side for a while back in the 70s at least beating Leeds 4-2(?) in a replayed FA cup final. I think they won the league around that period but I'm not completely certain on that.
    You can only speak as you find but have to say I cannot recall many Chelsea fans I've met that I've particularly liked. Some of them have been complete arseholes. But I am sure that is not entirely representative of their fanbase ;-)
  • In the 70's and 80's most of their fanbase were complete arseholes!
  • Chelsea only won the title once pre Abramovich, and the '70 cup final replay was 2-1, for the record.

    Their popularity outside the capital 40 to 50 years ago stemmed from the whole "Swinging London" thing in the sixties. Kings Road and all that - it made them popular among the arty and posh-hippy-kids-rebelling-against-their-parents types. The kind who by '77 were stock brokers with side partings and kipper ties, who then disassociated themselves with the club and all things football during the Thatcher years, only to re-claim their allegiance when football became fashionable again and Chelsea got rich, claiming they have "supported them since the seventies". The club have, as a result, always enjoyed a certain amount of support from people living miles away, a la Liverpool and Manchester United, but disproportionate to actually winning stuff - which is of course what attracts Colin in Basingstoke to Liverpool...

    The early gentrification of the area also contributed to a lot more of their fanbase moving out of London sooner than those from other areas supporting other clubs, so there are the grandchildren of those original denizens of SW6 now following the "family tradition" from Swindon. That's not to say that those kids would not now be "supporting" Liverpool or Man Utd had Chelsea not become successful, of course.

    I am fairly ambiguous about Chelsea, if I am honest. I ask myself "If it had happened to Charlton, would I have walked away?" The answer is an emphatic no. I would probably take the piss out of the newbies and the resurrected fans, but I would still follow the club.

    Like Paddy, all the Chelsea fans I know have supported them a long time, and are very pragmatic about the luck of Abramovich's arrival, and are pretty humble about the success that has brought. I am sure that does not apply to a lot of the others though.



  • 3blokes said:

    The Abramovitch era leaves me cold personally, and I know exactly what you mean Stig.
    But they were a decent side for a while back in the 70s at least beating Leeds 4-2(?) in a replayed FA cup final. I think they won the league around that period but I'm not completely certain on that.
    You can only speak as you find but have to say I cannot recall many Chelsea fans I've met that I've particularly liked. Some of them have been complete arseholes. But I am sure that is not entirely representative of their fanbase ;-)

    So many top quality players since Abramovitch took control, many of whom we may never have had the pleasure of seeing play on English soil had he not splashed out.

    Drogba was one of the best strikers this country has ever seen and Eden Hazard is becoming one of the best ever World class players in his position.

    I agree with Algarve, we'd take the money if it was thrown at us and maybe RD is doing that very thing as we speak?
  • Obviously london clubs formed in 1905 have no history
  • They really don't bother me. All this 'they have no history'...So what? Are we not allowed to do well because we've only won the FA Cup once?
  • I have the misfortune to be married to a Chelsea supporter, so just as he has been dragged to the valley with me I have had to endure Chelsea for the last 14 years with him. Also on this time I have seen Charlton beat Chelsea so not all bad, but basically since before the abramovitch takeover we've followed them. The raw emotion when they won the champions league was undeniable even I got pulled in with that one especially with Drogbas part in it. Basically love them or hate them they have real fans too just as we do and these fans were there when they were good but not quite good enough and they will still be there when the money isn't. It's not fair on those fans to say that their success isn't as real because of their money, I don't think any Charlton fan would turn it down. Also Chelsea spent less than the other teams in the top 4 last season and thoroughly deserved the title, I just wish they punished palarse a bit more.
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  • Late sixties early seventies was their "real" heyday. They had a wonderful team at times. Never liked them and the Russian is nothing more than a crook but they have had some success and the location fits for the prawn sandwich fans they attract.
  • I supported Chelsea in my youth before I saw the light and well before Abramovich and as a club dislike them now, but to say they have no history is wrong. In the late sixities early 70's they had some great players, won the FA Cup beating the mighty Leeds and the Cup Winner Cup beating Real Madrid, prior to that they won the League in the 50's. Now a horrible club with horrible fans that represents everything that is wrong in football, but they do have a history.
  • Fair enough Kap (and others) on the history. Still can't take 'em seriously though.
  • Stig said:

    They may have the best team in the country, but I just can't take them seriously as a club. A club with no great history that have bought their way to success with dirty money. If dopey-faced Roman had decided that Spurs was a better place to invest in his anti-arrest scheme, then Chelsea would be nowhere. Their fans seem to be a weird mish-mash of myopic school kids, plastic wannabes, middle-aged bovver boys endlessly prattling on about chopper and the shed, b-list 'celebrities' who think that an association with football will make them adorable to ordinary people and city broker types who think that bellowing at a pub tv once a fortnight qualifies them as working class. They are Millwall with money.

    I don't really like Arsenal, Liverpool or Man Utd, but at least when they win (or perhaps won) things there's not any doubt that they are proper clubs. And although Man City bought their success similarly to Chelsea, there's at least a feeling that they have a fan base that is committed and loyal and watches football for the right reasons.

    Now I'm sure that if any Chelsea fan were to read this, they'd think it was just sour grapes. They'd probably also sneer at me for supporting Charlton, whilst claiming that they don't have a great history. But it's not all about winning at any price. It's not about nailing your colours to the mast of a winning team. I don't begrudge them their league win, it's just that there's something about them that is 100% genuine fake and it's not for me.

    100% mixture of sour grapes and the little club 'we support our local club' bollocks mentality. The idea that Chelsea is not a proper club like Arsenal, Man United or Liverpool is laughable.
  • edited May 2015

    Anyone who claims to be a Chelsea fan, yet is not from the area, is basically saying they have no real interest in football

    So anybody born in Kent who supports Charlton has no real interest in football?
  • Stig said:



    They'd probably also sneer at me for supporting Charlton, whilst claiming that they don't have a great history.

    Again this little club mentality bollocks I find so annoying. The belief that supporters of big clubs sneer at you for supporting a small club. It is like it is something supporters of small clubs want to believe as a way of validating their support for a smaller club.
  • My mum has supported Chelsea since the 60s. She's seen them relegated twice and she is about as passionate a fan as you can get. As a result of her being a Chelsea fan when I was growing up I had to take an interest in them, particularly as this was before Sky was showing every kick of every ball every second. Charlton weren't in the Prem so they basically didn't exist on tv. I like my mum so I was happy to support Chelsea when they were on tv etc and in that time I saw Chelsea win two FA Cups (including the then fastest FA Cup goal ever being blasted past Ben Roberts), the Cup Winners' Cup (against Joachin Low's Stuttgart), the League Cup, and the Super Cup against Real Madrid. I saw them sign some of the most exciting players of the Premier League era like Di Matteo, Zola, Poyet, Desailly and Vialli and I still remember the match where Chelsea qualified for the Champions League through a Jesper Gronkjaer goal on the last game of the season. People remember that as the match that persuaded Abramovich to buy them but I remember it for how happy my mum was when they qualified. That's qualification for the Champions League pre-Abramovich by the way.

    Because Abramovich was the first of the super-rich owners (and the most effective) people like to wash away the successes the club had before his money but it's just factually wrong. They were a superb cup team and as a club they saw the value in signing foreign talent to enhance the league before many others did. Some may see that as a bad thing but I know I'd rather watch Sergio Aguero and Alexis Sanchez tearing up the league than Andy Carroll and Danny Welbeck. Chelsea would not be nowhere if Abramovich hadn't bought them, and even if they weren't winning the league due to that investment not being there they would still be a team who won a decent haul of trophies and had some of the greatest players of the early Premier League era. I honestly find some of the selective memories about them mystifying, but I'm aware that I've probably been exposed to the club more than most. I'm not a Chelsea fan incidentally, they're not even my favourite team in the Premiership, but the claims that they have no history and were nothing before Abramovich just aren't true
  • Chelsea do have a history to say otherwise is just nonsense, their history may not be filled with trophies and league titles, but they have always had some of the best English players in the 60s-70s, all the emphasis on achieving doesn't make history it's the legacy left by the players, hunter, Marsh, Osgood, greaves, bonnetti, Wilkins, Dixon the list goes on
  • We laugh at Chelsea for having contemporary success without having history.

    We laugh at Liverpool for having history without having contemporary success.
  • Fiiish said:

    We laugh at Chelsea for having contemporary success without having history.

    We laugh at Liverpool for having history without having contemporary success.

    And we laugh at Manchester United because they travel 200 miles for a home game and 2 miles for an away game. Plus their shittier rivals are now better and richer than them!
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  • Stig said:

    They may have the best team in the country, but I just can't take them seriously as a club. A club with no great history that have bought their way to success with dirty money. If dopey-faced Roman had decided that Spurs was a better place to invest in his anti-arrest scheme, then Chelsea would be nowhere. Their fans seem to be a weird mish-mash of myopic school kids, plastic wannabes, middle-aged bovver boys endlessly prattling on about chopper and the shed, b-list 'celebrities' who think that an association with football will make them adorable to ordinary people and city broker types who think that bellowing at a pub tv once a fortnight qualifies them as working class. They are Millwall with money.

    I don't really like Arsenal, Liverpool or Man Utd, but at least when they win (or perhaps won) things there's not any doubt that they are proper clubs. And although Man City bought their success similarly to Chelsea, there's at least a feeling that they have a fan base that is committed and loyal and watches football for the right reasons.

    Now I'm sure that if any Chelsea fan were to read this, they'd think it was just sour grapes. They'd probably also sneer at me for supporting Charlton, whilst claiming that they don't have a great history. But it's not all about winning at any price. It's not about nailing your colours to the mast of a winning team. I don't begrudge them their league win, it's just that there's something about them that is 100% genuine fake and it's not for me.

    100% mixture of sour grapes and the little club 'we support our local club' bollocks mentality. The idea that Chelsea is not a proper club like Arsenal, Man United or Liverpool is laughable.
    Absolutely not sour grapes, I don't have any expectation that we should or even could be in the position they are. It's not about us at all. It's about Gazprom and about some of the latter day Chelsea fans that I know - fortunately, others seem to have had better experiences there. Absolutely not about a "'we support our local club' bollocks mentality". I don't even support my local club.

    Fair cop on the 'not a proper club' bit, there's no argument to be had there. I wouldn't seriously want to argue that any league club isn't proper, every club is proper to its own fans and in its own way. That was a silly thing to say and a lesson in not posting when pissed ;-)
  • Personally can't stand anything about them. From their monotonous football, to their tosser manager, to their flag-waving lunchbox fans. Even that little prick who goads the opposition dug-out every time they score. Classless club.

    And no sour grapes involved.
  • edited May 2015

    Chelsea do have a history to say otherwise is just nonsense, their history may not be filled with trophies and league titles, but they have always had some of the best English players in the 60s-70s, all the emphasis on achieving doesn't make history it's the legacy left by the players, hunter, Marsh, Osgood, greaves, bonnetti, Wilkins, Dixon the list goes on

    Hunter & Marsh ? Who dem ?

    Norman Hunter - Leeds & Rodney Marsh - QPR & Man C, or were there 2 other Chelsea players named Hunter & Marsh. I don't think so ?
  • Stig said:



    They'd probably also sneer at me for supporting Charlton, whilst claiming that they don't have a great history.

    Again this little club mentality bollocks I find so annoying. The belief that supporters of big clubs sneer at you for supporting a small club. It is like it is something supporters of small clubs want to believe as a way of validating their support for a smaller club.
    They might not sneer, but there's certainly a bit of disbelief when some of them take the piss. If I had a quid for every time heard "Oh you're the one" from followers of "big" clubs...
  • Living and working in Manchester I meet as many Utd fans as I do City fans. The difference is hardly any of the Utd fans hold season tickets or regularly go to games, prices being the main issue. Fair enough if you meet a Utd fan, they're more likely to be from Stratford or Salisbury than Stretford or Salford, but these are the bastards who are pricing the locals out of their own stadium.

    Most City fans are aware that their success is purely from foreign money but they don't care because as long as they finish above Utd, that's more important than the knock-on effect on English football.
  • edited May 2015

    Chelsea do have a history to say otherwise is just nonsense, their history may not be filled with trophies and league titles, but they have always had some of the best English players in the 60s-70s, all the emphasis on achieving doesn't make history it's the legacy left by the players, hunter, Marsh, Osgood, greaves, bonnetti, Wilkins, Dixon the list goes on

    Hunter & Marsh ? Who dem ?

    Norman Hunter - Leeds & Rodney Marsh - QPR & Man C, or are there 2 other Chelsea players named Hunter & Marsh ?
    He might mean Hudson or maybe Hutchinson with the whirlwind throw and then of course there was Tambling, Cooke (Scottish), Webb, Harris, Bridges to name but a few more.
  • When it comes to talking football, no chelsea "fan" can have a conversation without bigging themselves up and turning the whole thing around to be about them.
    Chelsea fans = knobs
    Even my family and friends that follow them
  • I meant Harris not hunter, and El tel not Marsh my fault
  • A lot of Surrey Man U fans seem to have switched to Chelsea since the Russian pitched up (this statement is based on the replica shirts spotted in Sutton High Street over the last 25 years or so). There was always a Chelsea presence, but not the sort of majority there seems to be now.

    As long as they are winning at all costs, that's how it will be I suppose.

    They have some great players, but haven't yet worked out how to be a likeable club. I think that's why Abramovich buried the hatchet with Mourinho - they have to win things consistently, otherwise their marketability as a football brand is nothing in comparison to Europe's other top teams.
  • Anyone who claims to be a Chelsea fan, yet is not from the area, is basically saying they have no real interest in football


    I'm a Charlton Fan, born in Luton but still chose us... You could argue that I have no taste or clue about football too lol
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