Chelsea’s final three league games in 1971 were undistinguished affairs: a 2–1 home win over Coventry City. Then a mere forty-eight hours later, a 1–0 defeat at the hands of Burnley at a sparsely populated Stamford Bridge – the attendance was just 14,356 – and the season was rounded off with a goalless draw at Ipswich. So, come 1 May, and the table saw the Blues in sixth spot, just behind Liverpool on goal average, having suffered nine defeats.
Arsenal finished top of the tree, fifteen points clear of Sexton’s boys. They also lifted the FA Cup, collecting their first-ever double. But there were no Champions’ League places to be obsessed about in those days, and it is worth noting that Chelsea’s points tally was just one shy of third-placed Spurs.
There was a small incident which involved me turning my ankle over in a pothole in Hampstead. This ‘nothing event’ confirmed to me what I had always thought about the so-called cocky, Jack the lad merchants such as Os, Marsh and Venables.
To the fans on the terraces these were ultra-confident young men, who revelled in showing off. Some people called them ‘flash bastards’, but I knew this was far from the truth. Anyway, let us get back to my ankle turning: it blew up like a balloon, which necessitated the wearing of a decrepit slipper, and utilising an old hand-me-down walking stick which belonged to my father.
The first time Os saw me walking with a pronounced limp, battered slipper on my right foot and clutching my stick, he gave me the nickname of ‘Hoppy’. Walking along the Strand one afternoon towards Fleet Street, he even helped me across the road in the manner of a Good Samaritan assisting some doddery elderly lady. I tried to tell him there was nothing seriously wrong with my foot, but he insisted on doing what he obviously felt was the right thing. I felt somewhat of a fraud, and when I protested, he just smiled and continued to call me ‘Hoppy’.
Now, this insignificant event confirmed what I always knew. These guys were brimful of compassion and genuine warmth: their on-stage persona was just a performance in the manner of an actor or a singer. Gordon Williams summed it all up neatly when he said that Terry Venables, for example, was ‘a very serious introverted guy – the cheeky cockney chappie was a total act’.
Athens on 19 May 1971 gave the impression of being a much more democratic city than Salonika. Eight months had passed since that edgy and bizarre opening tussle in UEFA’s number two tourney, and the Fascist junta continued to run the show in the country that, ironically, gave birth to democracy.
However, the European Cup Winners’ Cup Final was a major event in the country’s capital, and with all the UEFA big cheeses in attendance plus other dignitaries, the Greek authorities were determined to put on what they considered their ‘kinder liberal face’.
The stars of Real Madrid were in a perverse way the perfect opponents for Chelsea. At the time Spain was still being ruled by Fascist dictator, General Franco, who incidentally was himself a fanatical fan of Real. So, despite the glossing-over of the venue and its nasty political overtones and such things as censorship and torture by so many politicians who prided themselves on being democrats, the VIP areas of the stadium were full of self-confessed Fascists. You could say that the game’s powerbrokers lacked any semblance of moral gumption.
45,000 supporters were packed into the Karaiskakis Stadium (plus the phalanx of Fascists). The stadium was part of Greek history, having been built as a velodrome for the first modern Olympics in 1896. It was named after a Greek hero, General Georgios Karaiskakis, who helped to defeat the Turks in the revolution of 1821. He was eventually slain not far from the environs of the stadium complex itself.
The Chelsea players knew they would be in for a tough encounter, but as Alan Hudson told me: ‘They (Real) were obviously a very good side, but a mere shadow of their predecessors. I saw the early ’60s version, when they made the European Cup their own personal property. Di Stefano, Puskas, Gento, Kopa and Santamaria: they were a football Hall of Fame.’
Francisco Gento was a dazzling winger who collected 43 caps for Spain and won the European Cup on no less than six occasions with Real Madrid – an unmatched record. But come the Chelsea face-off, he was now three years off forty, a bit on the portly side, and much of his famous oomph and zest had dissipated.
One Real Madrid player more than any other tickled Hudson’s fancy: ‘Easily their best player was midfielder Pirri, who was beautifully balanced and played the game as I like it played. Chess again. He used his teammates like pawns, working gambits. At the very highest level of a European competition, it really was like playing chess in a top championship: a battle without armour, a war without blood.’
Jose Martinez Sanchez, aka ‘Pirri’, represented Real Madrid for fifteen years from 1964–1979, winning ten La Liga titles, and the 1966 European Champions’ Cup. He gained 41 caps for Spain and after retiring, qualified as a doctor, working for his club’s medical staff.
Looking back through the mists of time, Huddy told me that ‘Pirri began running the first half – he looked in complete control. But Os put us in front with one of his beauties, and for a very long time it looked as if that would win us the final, but Pirri had other ideas, by pushing on his troops with some masterly football, and with just twenty seconds left, they hit us with an equaliser, Zicco capitalising on a mistake by John Dempsey’.
It has to be remembered that this European showpiece took place some years before the days of penalty shoot-outs and an unhealthy reliance on television money. But even when this is taken into consideration, my mind boggled when I learnt that the UEFA blazers, in their infinite wisdom, had made no plans for a replay!
After a great deal of bureaucratic humming and hawing, it was decided that the rematch should take place two days later at the same venue. This caused problems aplenty, not just for the Chelsea faithful that had made the trip via various packages costing up to £24 (serious folding stuff in ’71), but also for players and media people.
One incident, which highlights how times have changed in over forty years, revolves around Chelsea’s John Hollins, and was told to me by Alan Hudson. It seems that Hollins was due to be best man at a wedding, and his mother told him he couldn’t stay for the replay!
I’ll let Hudson take up the story: ‘Thursday was ordered as a rest day. Dave Sexton gave instructions that although we needed liquid intake, alcohol was banned. I went off to the market, with drinking the last thing on my mind. I was struggling with an injury to my thigh, and the thought of facing Pirri with a dodgy thigh and a hangover would have been very costly. That long Thursday was solitary and had an almost surreal quality about it because as lunchtime approached, Os, Charlie and Tommy (Baldwin) strolled up to the pool bar at the Athens Hilton, as if on a mission. I cannot in my wildest dreams think of who suggested such an afternoon and why, or can I? Of course I can, it was Osgood, and only because he thought he’d score again. He did!
‘It must have been about ninety degrees and there they were downing these tropical punches like they were on an end-of-season-tour or family holiday. Surely they couldn’t have forgotten about tomorrow? Here we were, going into the most important match in our lives, and these three were throwing these drinks down them as if tomorrow never came. And had Dave been tipped off, they would have been on the next flight home. I swear when I looked at them I had to check my own head, for they looked like we had won the match the night before and were celebrating.
‘Os was wearing a striped shirt that I think he wore after the match the following night, with a pair of Chelsea shorts and sandals. As I left, he raised his glass one last time and said, “Rest your leg, son, don’t worry, leave it all to me”.
The three mavericks were three completely different characters, but as Hudson has said, ‘If you put them together you had a very powerful concoction’.
Alan did actually challenge Peter Osgood about his eccentric pre-match build-up for what was probably Chelsea’s most important ever fixture. But he simply sent Hudson back to the hotel with these words: ‘Go home and have an early night, son, and leave it to me. I will win us the game.’
In Hudson’s own words, ‘It was the most frightening confidence, bordering on the ridiculous and arrogance, a sort of blindness, but he had done it time and time again. Absolutely nothing and nobody fazed him.’
And come match number two, Os was true to his word, putting away with aplomb the Blues’ second goal, which proved to be the winner. Chelsea’s first goal had come from an unlikely source: centre-half John Dempsey, who fired home with a venomous volley. Os’ goal was instigated by the battling Baldwin, who passed to the King, and he thundered the ball into the Madrid net.
It was ‘squeaky bum time’ for Blues fans in the second half, with Fleitas halving the Londoners’ advantage with just fifteen minutes left. Then, right on full-time, Bonetti made a save that showed why he bore the nickname of ‘The Cat’.
Hudson has christened the threesome ‘The Athens Hilton Party’, and admitted to me, ‘They in fact probably stole the show. They were involved in both the goals that put us on the brink of the club’s first-ever European success. They made a mockery of everything surrounding how to prepare for a football match, and they broke every rule in the book along the way. These three players just sat there relaxing with the look of holidaymakers who had earned a long awaited summer holiday. We playboys had now broken new ground in my first two seasons!’
Chelsea’s defeat of Real Madrid 2–1 – even a Real side shorn of the class of bygone years – never quite received the accolades that it deserved. But what it did confirm was that if manager Sexton could keep this squad together and somehow manage to instil more consistency as well as that ‘it’ factor – the ability to prevail when performing badly – then the future at Stamford Bridge looked to be a bright one; one dominated by a constant lifting of trophies. The fact that this never transpired was the fault of men not attempting to understand the human psyche.
It was Groundhog Day down the Fulham Road, as the players drove in triumph past their adoring fans holding aloft their European prize. It didn’t quite have that feeling of unadulterated euphoria that so dominated the post-FA Cup-winning revels, but it still was something to behold.
By now the 1960s’ atmosphere, which had continued to pervade the early years of the ’70s, was changing; not markedly at first, but as the 1971–72 season approached, life in Britain was starting to have a starker look about it, as class confrontation and strikes reappeared on the landscape with ever-increasing frequency and seriousness.
In many ways, Chelsea’s season mirrored that of the fortunes of the country: so many what ifs: so many let-downs. One point from the first four First Division encounters of the new campaign was a paltry return for such a talented squad.
In Europe, their opening game in the Cup Winners’ Cup was easy-peasy in its truest sense, as Os smashed all the net-finding records with a hat-trick in the first leg of the tie with Luxembourg outfit Jeunesse Hautcharage in an 8–0 canter. And then in the second leg, he bagged five in Chelsea’s all-time European record score, which stands to this day, of 13–0.
I watched this travesty of a football match against the amateurs from the Duchy (who included in their line-up a guy with one arm, and another wearing spectacles) from the old stand up in the stars that made the protagonists on the park resemble Subbuteo figures. I sat there in the company of Os’ sister Mandy, herself a footballer of outstanding ability, bewildered by what I was witnessing on the pitch: these amateurs from the land of the radio station (208 on the medium wave) that enlivened so many teenagers’ lives in the 1950s and early ’60s were in all honesty of pub-team class.
Frankly, the lifting of the Luxembourg Cup by Hautcharage was a miracle in itself. The club was based in a picturesque village of some 700 people, and participated in the country’s third tier. The 4–1 extra-time victory over one of the Duchy’s football superpowers, Jeunesse Esch, was pure David defeating Goliath, and the owners of a local brewery were so overjoyed by this unprecedented success that it offered free beer to the village for three days! Their own dinky home ground was far too small to host the first leg, having a capacity of no more than a 1,000 or so. As such, it was decided to move the game to the national stadium in the capital and 13,000 spectators paid through the turnstiles to witness what was in effect lambs to the slaughter.
Next up were Åtvidabergs of Sweden. Despite being several classes above the bakers and candlestick makers of Luxembourg, a comfortable passage to round three was predicted. But the inconsistency that had dogged Sexton’s charges since day one of the season continued unabated.
A 0–0 score line in Sweden was a dour affair, but Ossie and co were expected to up the ante at the Bridge in the second game. That they failed to do so was down to their profligacy in front of goal, highlighted by John Hollins’ failure to convert from the penalty spot. The final score was 1–1, with Hudson notching for the Blues, but the Cup holders went out to an outfit of part-timers, on the away goals rule. The 25,000 fans went home shaking their heads in disbelief. Was this new era of glory about to implode?
The answer was no with a capital N, for ‘Chopper’ Harris and his men, no doubt chastened by the Åtvidabergs experience and the subsequent criticism of their performance, buckled down and proceeded to produce the goods, resulting in an 11-game unbeaten run in all competitions. Yes, the Blues were back on track.
The victories included a memorable 3–2 home win over Spurs in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final three days before Christmas, but a 1–0 reverse at Derby on New Year’s Day was a blip, and the first day of 1972 saw them in a mid-table position of tenth.
The decisive second leg of the semi-final with Spurs on 5 January was a stormy affair, with Chelsea scraping into the final 5–4 on aggregate, thanks to goals from Hudson and a Hollins spot-kick.
According to Hudson: ‘Os had a running battle with Mike England all night.’
However, seven days before the final with Stoke, they suffered an embarrassing 3–2 FA Cup fifth round defeat at Second Division Orient, despite at one stage leading 2–0, Osgood and Webb on target.
Then to the League Cup Final itself at Wembley Stadium on Saturday 4 March, which in so many respects was the precursor to the break-up of that flamboyant Blues side that so encapsulated the spirit of the age. There was, however, an aspect of the pre-final build-up that did much to enhance the Kings of King’s Road’s rock ’n’ roll credentials, and what better way to do this than with a top-five hit record. Welcome to ‘Blue is the Colour’, produced by the ‘Teenage Raqe’ of the 1950s, Larry Page. The man who, back in ’64, had paid for my slap-up feast at the Pickwick Club. Talk about life going round and round in never-ending circles!
‘Blue is the Colour’ was released on 26 February 1972 on Penny Farthing Records. In March, it reached number five in the charts, and the Chelsea team members who made the record under Page’s direction appeared on BBC TV’s flagship show, Top of The Pops.
‘We appeared just the once on Top of The Pops,’ Alan Hudson told me. ‘I think if we’d won the final against Stoke, the record would have made number one. After the show we joined up with Babs and a couple of the other Pan’s People at Alexander’s in Chelsea – it was a great night.’
‘What did you get for being part of such a successful pop disc?’ I asked.
‘Just a tax bill!’ quipped the former Chelsea midfielder. ‘One thing in particular I remember about the recording was that as we approached the studios, I noticed that The Bee Gees were leaving. And when we reached the main door they were walking towards us, having just finished their recording. They looked at us, and we looked at them. It was almost surreal. Anyway, their record was not a hit, but ours was massive, which just goes to show what can happen. I also remember what I was wearing that day, it was a white cashmere polo neck sweater from Cecil Gee.
‘These days the record is played before each and every home game, but I receive nothing for that.’
Hudson also started to make friends in the rock music world, most notably with Frank Allen of The Searchers, which brings me to my own brief ‘association’ with the hit 1960s group. In 1964, I had a meeting with their manager Les Ackerley – our company was about to launch some Searchers pennants. He immediately struck me as the archetypal Northern showbiz promoter of the time, blunt and to the point. He chain-smoked and consumed a new cocktail that supposedly contained monkey glands; a drink that was meant to keep you looking more youthful. Well, judging from Les’ looks, it had failed miserably.
As for Frank Allen, he had replaced bass guitarist Tony Jackson in their line-up in 1964, and was soon involved in the smash-hit ‘When You Walk in the Room’, a record notable for the first use of the electric twelve-string guitar.
Another rock star to befriend Hudson was a true icon – The Who’s Keith Moon. Hudson and Allen would often spend their evenings in Moon’s company at the La Chasse club in Soho. I saw Moon and his mates live more than once in 1964, and they were sensational – what a noise! What a racket! No wonder I am a tinnitus sufferer these days!
‘Blue is the Colour’ has true cult status, and has been covered by various singers in a host of different countries. In what was then Czechoslovakia, Frantisek Ringo Cech came out with a version called ‘Zelena je trava’ (Green is The Grass), which became a popular football anthem in that country
In 1972 the Danish Olympic team used the tune as their anthem, ‘Rod-hvide farver’ (Red and White Colours). Six years later, the ditty was re-recorded as ‘White is the Colour’ for the Vancouver Whitecaps soccer team, and sold enough copies to become a minor Canadian hit.
One version which never appealed to ardent Chelsea fans was the one used by the Tory Party for their successful General Election campaign in 1979. The late Tony Banks, ardent Chelsea fan and Labour MP and minster was one such objector. Here the words were changed to, ‘Blue is the Colour, Maggie is her name; we’re all together’ etc.
Speaking of the late and lamented Tony Banks, who died in 2006 aged sixty-three, one player from the Kings of King’s Road era to become close to the Labour politician in the 1990s was Alan Hudson. Banks helped Alan launch his highly acclaimed autobiography, The Working Man’s Ballet, at a reception at the House of Commons. As Huddy said of the former MP for Newham North West: ‘Tony was a real one-off, and a real fan of the club.’
Hudson more than hinted to me that number one would have been theirs for the taking, if the boys had clinched their third pot in as many years. And certainly, it was a major upset when the ageing Stoke outfit prevailed 2–1, with thirty-five-year-old George Eastham claiming the winner after Ossie had brought Chelsea back level, following Terry Conroy’s opener.
Some twenty-six years later, Peter Osgood gave me his impressions of the final. ‘They had some real gems in their line-up. You know, any side with the likes of Gordon Banks, George Eastham and Peter Dobing had to be respected. I suppose you could say in boxing terms we deserved to win on points. But they got the vital goal when Peter Bonetti blocked Jimmy Greenhoff’s shot only for George Eastham to follow up and score from about a yard.’
The final fifteen minutes saw a non-stop siege of the Stoke goal, but Banks was in inspired form. For Stoke, it was their first major trophy in 109 years. As for the Blues, to quote Bob Dylan’s 1965 classic song, you could say ‘It’s all over now, Baby Blue’.
‘We did enough to win three Cup Finals,’ Hudson pointed out.
In First Division terms the season ended with just the one victory from the last six games, and the final position of seventh represented something of a backward step.