Why Shed End Blues?


Well that's the place I spent many Saturday afternoons following the Chelsea team through the ups and downs of the 70's and 80's - and of course my name: Ernie Blues so add together the two and you get "Shed End Blues".


In fact such passion has now been passed on to my daughter who was suitably christened Chelsea Blues - and while we live 4,500 miles away from Stamford Bridge these days - I managed to get her to the Middlesboro FA Cup 3rd round tie a couple of years ago. She loved every minute of it - and what 10 year old wouldn't enjoy 30,000 plus fans chanting her name for 90 minutes!


Of course when Carlo Cudicini got sent off the crowd were not too happy and having lived over the wrong side of the Atlantic all her life - she wanted to know what a wanker was - as everybody was telling the ref. Well I declined for another occasion. In any case we won and we both lost our voices cheering - great day out.


You could say that the Shed End Blues sums up some of the downs during the 70's and 80's but all I rememeber are the good times - The glory days of the early 70's; The promotions back to the 1st division and the scalps taken like beating the European Champs of the late 70's and early 80's Liverpool on a regular basis in the FA Cup. The nine goal wembly final win 5-4 against Man City. Inconsistent - but on their day capable of beating anybody.


We'd bunk the train up from Reading, dodge the underground and pay our 50p under 16 rate to stand in the Shed End - the atmosphere was always electric - guaranteed to get crushed if Chelsea scored - and if the footy was no good there was always the North End idiots putting on the half time show.



The Shed End Today

So obviously Mourinho was suitably impressed with Michael Ballack's ability to create a penalty in Chelsea's 4-2 defeat of Bayern last year - so he decides that this is the weapon to beat Barcelona next year (fight fire with fire).


Well at least Ronaldinho can rest easily as he will not have to justify a $80m price tag in the rough and tumble of the premiership against the likes of Bolton and Blackburn "Chop your legs off" northern butchery.




Sorry to see the demise of another great legend in Celtic's phenomenal winger Jimmy "jinky" Johnstone, one of the legendary "Lisbon Lions". Certainly the player everybody wanted to emulate as a young boy with his incredible dribbling style. Celtic's greatest ever player?


You can see a very moving video of his funeral parade by clicking here


Anyway - back to the Premiership Championship countdown. With a good run of results we'll win it at home to West Ham on April 9 on the same day that Man U drop points at home to the Gooners - if not it will either come away to Bolton (Deja vous)on April 15 or Home to Everton on April 17.


With the World Cup around the corner, Chelski are going to be linked with every decent footballer alive between now and the end of August - so with another $200m in the kitty - never mind the Ballacks!!

What a screamer from Gallas - just as it looked like Spurs might steal a point from us - Gallas playing in his favoured (by Mourhino) position of left back scored a goal that would give Ashley Cole wet dreams.


To be fair, the Spurs played some good footy and did not come to park the proverbial bus across the eighteen yard line for the entire 90 minutes.


It also proved that not only Man U can score goals in injury time and the title is soon to be ours back to back - a rare acheivement in the England Premiership.


Final Score: Chelsea 2-1 Spurs. Chelsea are now 18 points clear at the top of the Premiership


Unlike Barcelona, we won this weekend - and as they will probably note - it is not easy to play with only ten men - or in their case 9 men in their dour loss to Osasuna - who the fuck are they in any case??



Shed End Blues sends a thanks to the great one upstairs for allowing Peter Osgood to grace the fields of Stamford Bridge and the great & happy memories that Ossie gave us over the years.