http://soccernet.espn.go.com/blog/_/name/chelsea/id/168?cc=5739 Excellent article by Phil Lythell which sums up my feelings and thoughts exactly, might do for some others as well.
A lot of us on here are of a similar age and have lived through everything the blog mentions. It's those things that have made us the fans we are and pass on to new fans. Whilst there are things we all wish had been different the fact is they are part of the club and part of us as fans. Chelsea wouldn't be the same if we hadn't gone through all those things. Be honest,being a nondescript club like Spuds wouldn't be any fun at all.
Phil Lythell has hit it squarely on the head! I'd been going long before Bates ever turned up--and I can remember the days when everyone who wasn't a Blue used to feel sorry for me, particularly when we we're yo-yoing backwards and forwards between Div 1 and 2! How things have changed! The press are against us but it cant change me!
I'd consider myself a newer fan. By newer I mean Bates era. I've been a fan of the club since 1994 though so not that new in the wider scheme of things. I've always viewed things as us against the world for many of the things Phil Lythell mentions but also a bit of what BlueMoon mentions as well. I still remember my Arsenal and United supporting relatives laughing at me when I told them I supported Chelsea saying we would never win X, Y or Z. Funny how times change though. This is why I can't understand the hostility by some towards Chelsea and City fans. Chelsea have always been a marmite club in the sense that if you don't support them you hate them. I had always believed United were the most hated club until Moscow. A lot of my bitterness towards the media (generally speaking) stems from the fact the two of the three parts of my identity I hold dearest to me: Culture and Chelsea are constantly targetted by the media. I still remember the amount of flak we took for becoming the first English team to field an all foreign XI. We were torn apart by the press and many accused the club of being anti-English and I even recall one journalist saying we shouldn't be allowed to play in the PL. Strange that even 10-12 years ago those kind of Xenophobic views in the media were tolerated. I still remember the ritual humiliation of Ranieri having not been able to speak a world of English. Many at the time saying we turned our back in English managers and clubs like us were ruining football. Then after that, along came Roman.... It seems we're the guinea pig of any major changes in English Football albeit Chairman banning press from conferences, A multi billionaire owner, etc
There are a finite amount of teams and fans and not many trophies. This means only so many fans are actually supporting a 'successful' side. In my youth three teams were constantly successful and therefore, shall we say, disliked by me purely as I saw them as a block to my team Chelsea winning things. They were obviously Arsenal, Liverpool and the Manchester Utd. Yet as a good English bear I wanted even these teams to do well in Europe. When teams like Aston Villa and Everton and Nottingham Forest won big I shared in the glory as I saw it as hope that one day Chelsea may do the same. Basically I know what it feels like to have an animosity to a successful club, yet what always pressed my buttons were not so much the teams and their players but the fans of those teams who seemed to think by following a successful football team somehow made them a special and wise person. A few of these fans have, by their intrinsic nature, have switched their support to the new powers such and Chelsea and Manchester City and the traditional support suffer for it. Although I'm not so naive to notice that even some of the older long term Chelsea fans have also become some of these special and oh so clever people, which acerbates the animosity from other fans. Some of them feel that Chelsea fans should remember their roots and be a bit humble, not that I entirely agree they have the right to feel this way. So we have the fans who support the minnows of the soccer world with their ingrained chip on the shoulder of any successful team and now those of teams which now have more than two genuine rivals which can lead to their team having a season winning nothing, who now have their noses well out of joint. Added together we all hate Chelsea, they need to be taken down a peg and it was only the money that got their success (an ignorant view and Man U's international fan base provided merchandising revenue to keep them top of the pile for so long. A reputation solidly based in sympathy for a truly awful tragedy. Liverpool based on Vernon's pools money in a much cheaper era giving them true financial power and Arsenal by a long standing international reputation built over many years and in my opinion some of the best chairman the sport has known). Money attracts money and that fact kept the status quo in the top level of soccer for decades. Now our economy keeps the poor poorer and the rich richer in all walks of life. Now unless hundreds of millions are pumped into a club they will not be able to sustain a high league position. Just look at Blackburn since Jack Walker died. Slowly but surely his wealth has been withdrawn from the club by his less passionate heirs. They had a good go at switching the cash flow from chairman to merchandising but it depended on regular success and they didn't get it due to the big 3 becoming a big 4 and then a big 5. Now we see a slow but certain decline in their fortunes as they become prudent and lower their ambitions (rightfully I think, keep the club alive). Arsenal, Liverpool and Man U recognising this need for huge cash injections have all had new board members/owners to bring in the huge sums needed to match Chelsea and Man City. It is how it is and the fans are not responsible, the players follow their noses and the money which is being thrown at them. The fans though are responsible for idiotic statements based on a complete lack of self awareness, filtered history through rose coloured glasses and human nature to put down others to make themselves feel special.
