If you have no interest in football you may wish to skip this post.
It’s prompted by Roman Abramovich’s decision to sell Chelsea football club which the Russian oligarch has owned since 2003.
It’s also inspired by several articles in the mainstream media including one in The Times by Daniel Finkelstein who wrote:
The past 20 years as a Chelsea fan have been an extraordinary experience. Having been a supporter since I was seven, and become used to relegation and early cup exits, the parade of trophies has been incredible. I won’t pretend that I haven’t enjoyed it all immensely.
But like many other (though obviously not all) Chelsea fans, I think the decision by Roman Abramovich to sell the club was inevitable and right. He could not carry on.
I agree. But let me explain my own interest.
Regular readers will know that having grown up in Scotland from the age of ten I have supported Dundee United for more than 50 years.
My ‘other’ team is Chelsea and the truth is that when I started following football at the age of seven or eight Chelsea was the first club I supported.
Living in Maidenhead, Berkshire, I chose Chelsea for two reasons.
One, the club had a young team that had just been beaten by Spurs in the 1967 FA Cup final and for some reason (I can't imagine why) I identified with the losing side!
Two, my aunt - who was then in her early thirties - lived in Kensington which is in the borough of Kensington and Chelsea and whenever I visited her I would always notice signs pointing to Chelsea.
And so I started supporting the football club.
In 1969 however my family moved to Scotland. Keen to support a club I could follow in person I chose Dundee United whose ground was a 20-minute bus ride followed by a 20-minute walk from where we lived.
I loved going to Tannadice but I still followed Chelsea and when they won the FA Cup in 1970 it was a big moment for me.
In those days the final wasn’t shown live on television in Scotland because it clashed with the Scottish Cup final. I didn’t know that until the day of the game so it was a huge disappointment.
Instead I listened to the radio commentary and I have never forgotten the moment Chelsea equalised in the dying minutes, the match going into extra time at 2-2.
Better still, because the Scottish Cup final had ended in normal time viewers in Scotland were able to watch the additional 30 minutes live on Grandstand.
There were no further goals and Chelsea escaped with a rather lucky draw on a pitch that had been reduced to a mud bath by a show jumping event that took place on the same grass a week earlier.
That meant a replay at Old Trafford - on a Wednesday night - and this time, because it didn’t clash with any games in Scotland, the match was shown north of the border as well.
To put this in perspective, the only live football matches on television in 1970 were the cup final, the home internationals, the European Cup final and the World Cup.
Subsequently described as the ‘dirtiest’ match in English football history – although it didn't seem that way at the time – I watched the replay on our small black and white TV (the same TV we watched the World Cup final on in 1966).
As an aside, Chelsea were in all blue and Leeds were in all white which was fine in black and white.
Years later however, in another cup match, Chelsea were in blue and Liverpool were in red which on a black and white TV look almost identical.
Legendary commentator Peter Jones apologised "to those watching in black and white" but added helpfully that "Chelsea are wearing white socks".
That was in 1978 and Chelsea beat the European champions, as Liverpool then were, 4-2.
But I digress.
Like the first game at Wembley the Old Trafford replay went to extra-time – Chelsea coming from behind again – but it must have been past my bedtime because when Chelsea scored the winning goal all I can remember is being under the covers with a small transistor radio pressed against one ear.
After winning the European Cup-Winners Cup the following year, beating Real Madrid in the final after yet another replay, the club’s fortunes began to wane thanks to the construction of a towering new stand that was supposed to be the start of the redevelopment of the entire ground.
Instead the money ran out and the great team of Osgood, Cooke and Hudson (to name a few) was broken up, leading to a cycle of relegation, promotion and relegation. And that was just the Seventies.
When I moved to London in 1980 I was finally able to attend matches. For several years I lived just a mile up the road so it was an easy walk to the ground.
Both the club and the stadium were in a bad way. The club had been relegated again in 1979 so the team I was watching was in the old second division where they languished for four or five years.
One season - 1982/83 if I remember - the club even flirted with relegation to the old third division.
As for the stadium, the East Stand that had almost bankrupted the club was the only modern thing about it. The old West Stand, where I generally sat, was eventually torn down and replaced in the Nineties, 20 years behind schedule.
The standing only terraces behind each goal were largely open, although the Shed end, where I watched a raucous third round FA Cup match against Liverpool in 1982, was partly covered.
Unexpectedly second division Chelsea beat Liverpool again but that was the first and last time I stood in an area that became infamous for its violent hooligan element.
There was also a running track around the pitch which meant spectators were sitting (or standing) a considerable distance from the playing area, especially if you were behind one of the goals.
When the stadium was full the atmosphere was nevertheless fantastic. More often though it was less than half its (then) 50,000 capacity and I remember some matches in the old second division when attendances fell below 10,000.
I still enjoyed going though and I didn’t particularly care what division they played in. It mattered far more that the club stayed in business, something I imagine Derby fans would currently empathise with.
As it happens, some of my favourite Chelsea players were from that second division era - Mike Fillery (as good as Tottenham’s Glen Hoddle, or so I thought), centre back Colin Pates, Pat Nevin and several more.
I was there when Nevin, brought to Chelsea from Clyde and now a pundit and co-commentator on Five Live, beat half a dozen Newcastle players in a dazzling run from his own half.
Having rounded the keeper he then steered the ball wide of the goal and still got a standing ovation. To this day I remember that more than most of the hundreds of goals I have seen live. (That was a second division match too. Chelsea won 4-0.)
In those days it was still relatively cheap and easy to attend a match. All you had to do was stroll up on the day of the game, pay at the turnstile, buy a programme, watch the match and go home (avoiding any trouble that might be brewing).
Off the pitch the Eighties were an even more desperate period for Chelsea. Chairman Ken Bates bought the debt-ridden club allegedly for £1, hooliganism was rife and Bates briefly considered erecting an electrified fence to keep Chelsea ‘supporters’ off the pitch.
I remember going to a midweek match against Sunderland in 1986 or 1987. It was the second leg of a League Cup semi-final and after Chelsea had lost the match and the tie hundreds of 'fans' invaded the pitch and Clive Walker, a former Chelsea favourite then playing for Sunderland, was assaulted. It was sickening.
Meanwhile the threat of eviction from Stamford Bridge hung over Chelsea for years and even though the club gradually improved on the playing side - following yet another relegation/promotion in the late Eighties - financially things were still a struggle.
When Ken Bates – who I once interviewed in his office at Stamford Bridge – eventually sold the club to Roman Abramovich in 2003, the business was allegedly close to collapse.
How true that is I don't know but I do know that without Abramovich’s resources and commitment the quite extraordinary success the club has enjoyed over the last 19 years would never have happened.
It's true that Chelsea had been making gradual progress on the football front for more than a decade before Abramovich appeared (the stadium too had been upgraded with new stands and a hotel at one end) and Bates deserves credit for that.
He also fought off property developers, ensuring that Chelsea could remain at Stamford Bridge, possibly for ever, although in hindsight that created a problem for Abramovich and the next owner because it will cost billions to build a modern new stadium with a significantly larger capacity on the existing site. But that’s another story.
Nevertheless the 19 major titles Chelsea have won since Abramovich bought the club - including five Premier League and two Champions League titles - are predominantly due to the Russian oligarch and I can't imagine there are many Chelsea supporters who aren't extremely grateful for his patronage or would wish he had never bought the club.
However there are far more important things in life than football and Chelsea's future is insignificant compared to a ruthlessly invaded country and its people. I therefore agree with Daniel Finkelstein that ‘the decision by Roman Abramovich to sell the club was inevitable and right’.
I am grateful however for the memories and if this marks the beginning of the end of Chelsea's golden era then so be it. Nothing lasts forever.
In fact, and I probably shouldn't admit this, the club has won so many trophies in the Abramovich era that I've become a bit blasé to the extent that I wasn't especially fussed when Chelsea lost the Carabao Cup final to Liverpool on penalties last week.
It was enough for me that they played well in an entertaining match.
Likewise when they lost the FA Cup final to Leicester last season. After all, a few days later they won arguably the most prestigious trophy of all – the European Cup (aka the Champions League) - although I still think winning the Premier League is the true mark of a top, top team.
The Champions League, which requires a significant slice of luck to win, is merely the icing on the cake, and the less said about the World Club Cup (or whatever it’s called) the better. Nice to win but quickly forgotten.
The truth is, if your team has won multiple trophies it's not so bad to lose the odd final because there's always another one to look forward to. Or so you hope. The Champions League is the exception because those finals rarely come round. And you have to qualify before you can compete in the competition.
In the 50+ years I have supported Dundee United they have won just five major trophies – the Scottish League, the Scottish Cup (twice) and the Scottish League Cup (twice).
For a middle-ranking provincial club in Scotland that's actually quite good – better than bigger clubs like Hibs and Hearts and far better than our local rivals Dundee who have won just one major trophy, the Scottish League Cup, in all that time – and I treasure the memory of each and every one.
In the same period Chelsea have won 24 major trophies, 19 of them since 2003. I've enjoyed them all but only a handful generated the same pride and pleasure as those rare United successes.
What I think I'm saying is, winning regularly is nice but occasional success can actually bring far greater pleasure.
Nevertheless, as the Abramovich era comes to a close, I've loved almost every moment of it. For even casual supporters like me it's been quite a ride.
PS. When people think of football hooliganism they think primarily of the Eighties. Football had a problem long before then however.
As a child one of my favourite TV programmes was Softly Softly, the BBC police series that ran from 1966-1969.
One episode, in 1969 I think, featured a story involving gangs from London and Manchester who arranged to meet for a pre-arranged fight before Manchester United played Chelsea in a midweek match under floodlights.
I must have watched it on my own because I can't imagine my parents would have been happy with the pervading threat of violence!
The programme was in black and white of course which enhanced the bleakness of the drama. I can't remember what happened but I do remember it being quite frightening.
Oddly enough it didn't put me off following Chelsea. Quite the opposite. I rooted for them to win the fictional match which ended, I think, in a bloody draw, on and off the pitch.