Hating Chelsea

I know Barnsley is in Yorkshire, but that’s about it. Oh and that they play at Oakwell. Even factoring that a lot of people support the underdog in the FA Cup, the antipathy towards Chelsea during their recent FA Cup in some circles was out of this world.

It’s not about the money but maybe it is after all. John Terry was in the news recently for parking in a disabled zone because it was convenient, and when you earn 135 thousand pounds a week, a 60 pound fine isn’t really going to matter but it’s the principle of it. It’s not like he was taking his heavily dilated WAG to the hospital or about to miss his flight at the airport, he was going for pizza and there was a parking garage nearby where he could’ve done it for 50p apparently. Yes, maybe a part of the reason why Chelsea are so hated is because of the money- Terry and Lampard were alright guys, despite some youthful indiscretions before and up until the early Roman days.

I remember the last time I rooted for Chelsea in one of the most important matches of the decade. Chelsea vs. Liverpool at the end of the 2002/03 season. The match would end up affecting the course of European football for the next few years. Both sides went into the final round of matches on 64 points, and the winner of the match would get a place in the Champions League. For cash strapped Chelsea, who could only afford to bring in Enrique de Lucas on a free that season, CL qualification was essential to their survival. Chelsea won the match 2-1. If they hadn’t qualified, the loss of revenue, added to the fact that Roman might not have found them so attractive and Chelsea might have been scrapping with Leeds in League 1 at the moment.

Chelsea at the time were a bit like Newcastle during their 90s heyday. They tried to play attractive football and would probably have been a candidate for most people’s second team. I would say the neutral support was leaning towards them on that day in 2003. The summer following was crazy, and great time to be a Chelsea fan. It was almost like Christmas in July for the Chelsea fans as almost every morning saw a new top-class signing coming in. Not bad when the fans had grown accustomed to seeing the likes of underperformers like Jokanovic and Dalla Bona in the team.

The manager was Claudio Ranieri, who once the press gave a chance to settle showed himself to be a thoroughly likeable man. The team was built in his own jovial image. Zola, another player you can’t say a bad word against pulled the strings on the pitch. People were quick to champion the likes of Terry and Lampard over their Manchester United counterparts Ferdinand (who’d been banned for missing a drugs test) and Scholes.

Then came Jose Mourinho, and the smiling face of Chelsea turned into something altogether different. In Sophie Kinsella’s new book, Remember Me, the main character apparently has to become an uberbitch to achieve a successful career. Sophie could basically have been describing Chelsea. They may have won 2 league titles and a handful of cups, but they’ve lost a lot of friends. I don’t think so much mirth would have followed a Chelsea cup exit only 5 years ago.