Living Dangerously

The year of living dangerously Billonaire Roman Abramovich's capture of Chelsea was the sensation of the season. Here, Simon Garfield offers a true fan's view of a momentous 12 months Sunday May 9, 2004The Observer
Another quiet season for the Blues. A few comings and goings, the usual goalkeeping catastrophes, the tiresome complaints after our square-jawed German full-back trod on Alan Shearer's nuts - just one predictable thing after another. At the tail end of these kinds of seasons the true fan's eyes gaze away from the pitch towards the things that really count, the things that define who we are.
1. One's fellow fans
Several seats to my left and a few rows down in the East Stand Upper sits a man with a bell. It's the sort of instrument with which schoolchildren are summoned in from playtime and the man rings it with abandon whenever he pleases. Chelsea do not have a band like some other teams and no one has a rattle these days unless they are being ironic. The bell man may have a tune in his head, but it bears no relation to anything being sung by anyone else or anything happening on the pitch. Sometimes when we have scored, the bell is subdued. Frequently when we are defending a corner and everyone else is eating their fingers, the bell will jump into life and make a big commotion.


Hacked by "AhMeT"