The contributors

 John Neal, Colin Lee, Joey Jones, Mickey Thomas, Eddie Niedzwiecki, Colin Pates, David Speedie, Pat Nevin, Steve Clarke, Kerry Dixon, Nigel Spackman and John Bumstead.

Extracts

“It was at 11.30am on Saturday 25th August 1984 that the two teams ran out for the new season. Over 45,000 were at the Highbury Library and 20,000 of those were supporting the Blues. There was one song dominating the Clock End on that baking hot day:

Hello Hello, Chelsea are back, Chelsea are back

Well, what could be better on a Saturday morning than a bit of Gary Glitter?”

“Before the start of the game, the band Culture Club, who were massively popular at the time, came onto the pitch with a few of Chelsea’s youngsters to film the video for their new record. Their flamboyant lead-singer, Boy George, stood in the centre circle posing and taking abuse from the fans and, to be fair, giving plenty of good-natured stick in return. Then the players ran out to warm-up and Mickey Thomas and Joey Jones joined in with the crowd in giving George some verbals, mixed in with a few hand gestures. The video was for a record called The Medal Song, and part of the chorus sang ‘Through my anger and my tears, my joy and pain. Life will never be the same as it was again’. It summarised perfectly my feelings on the day that I heard Alan Mayes had left the club. The record flopped, and so did Chelsea that day as bottom of the table Watford won 3-2 despite Kerry scoring twice. Perhaps John Neal should have selected Boy George for the team to stiffen up the back four.”

“On the way back to London we heard about the trouble at the Birmingham v Leeds match which left a young boy dead, and then news filtered through that a fire was raging at Bradford City’s stadium which eventually killed forty of their supporters. As if that wasn’t horrific enough, within days Gerry Marsden had formed a ‘celebrity’ band and recorded a charity version of his famous anthem You’ll Never Walk Alone which featured the vocal talents of, amongst others, Bruce Forsyth, Dave Lee Travis and the cast of Auf Wiedersehen Pet.”

“The Second Division trophy was presented to Graham Roberts after the last home match of the season, a 3-1 win over Bradford City which was played out in front of two sets of supporters who enjoyed a tremendous camaraderie on the day. The only hint of any trouble came as the trophy was about to be presented and the Bradford supporters insisted on staying in the ground to applaud the Chelsea team. Incredibly, they were forced to leave the ground to much booing and catcalling in the direction of the police from the home fans. It was a nice way to end a successful season, nonetheless, and although they weren’t aware of it at the time, the supporters present saw one of the modern game’s biggest superstars – in his own mind, at least – make his Stamford Bridge bow that day: the linesman with the yellow flag was a certain Mr Graham Poll.”

 John Neal : “That was the worst defeat I ever had as a player or a manager. It hurt. It always hurt me to lose, but to lose by six… it just proved a point: that there had to be big changes in order to get Chelsea and their supporters back to where they belonged – which was in the top division – and in order to give those supporters value for money. But it did hurt, it was a lethal blow. I shudder when I think of it. We conceded six and Johnny Bumstead missed two penalties, so it was tragic all the way through. If you were ever going to write a tragedy, that was it. At that point I thought ‘I’ve got to get rid of some of these lads before they get rid of me’, so I started to weed them out.”

 Colin Lee : “The way that you knew Ronnie (Harris) had done something naughty was because he would immediately mop his brow with the inside of his arm. I remember one game when I first went there. Everybody used to call Clive Walker ‘Flash’ at the time, for reasons that are well known, and Clive was always the target for opponents to cement. In this particular game Clive got his usual kicking from one of the players and Ronnie looked over and said in his Cockney accent ‘Don’t worry about him Flash, leave him to me’. Anyway, the play’s going on up the other end of the pitch when all of a sudden the crowd start whistling and shouting and I see Ronnie mopping his brow. Straight away I’m thinking ‘Oh no’, so I look back and there’s the guy who booted Clive lying in a heap on the floor.”

Joey Jones : “I signed for Chelsea on the Tuesday and, believe it or not, by Thursday I had a lot of hate mail from Chelsea fans. I was also going to take Gary Chivers’ place on the Saturday and he’d been there a while. Unfortunately, because of things I’d got up to at Carlisle, I also wasn’t very well liked there either. The problem was, for every team I played for, I always gave 120% and sometimes I went over the boundaries, because that was the way I was. Chelsea had a big following and I went up to Carlisle and there must have been about 2,000 Chelsea fans there; and when I ran onto the pitch and they announced the teams, both sets of supporters booed me. I got sent-off about ten or fifteen minutes into the second-half for a foul on a player called Paul Bannon and when I got sent-off, both sets of fans cheered!”

Mickey Thomas : “The fans came on at the end of the game and they took my shirt off me, then they took my boots and my socks but I never used to wear anything under my shorts and they were trying to get my shorts off me and I’m shouting ‘NO YOU CAN’T’. Everyone was trying to get them. I’ll never forget it, it was so funny, I’m desperately trying to get off the pitch and I’m having to run off while I’ve got hold of my shorts.”

David Speedie : “Then we had the famous game down at Stamford Bridge on the quagmire when I scored in the first five minutes with a left-foot volley and we were back in the game, but Clive Walker, our former team-mate, scored with a couple of breakaways and then I got sent-off for two bookings. As I was going off Clive asked me if I wanted to buy any cup final tickets so I told him not to come into the players’ bar after the game. I tried to knock him out on the pitch, to be honest, but it got stopped. He then made the mistake of not taking my advice so we ended up near enough having a brawl when he turned up in the bar. The bar was packed, I put my pint down when he walked in but it was just handbags in the end, it all got stopped. Big Micky Droy picked me up as if I was a piece of litter on the floor, pulled me out of the way and said ‘Speedo, behave yourself’. I just thought it was disrespectful for Clive to come back and do that.”

Colin Pates : “I hadn’t really realised the significance of the fixture at Bolton. We went into the players’ bar after the game and everybody was saying ‘Well done, well done’ but it wasn’t until I got home that it suddenly dawned on me that if we hadn’t won that game we’d have gone, the club would have been gone. I’m not saying this just because I played in that game, but I think a lot of the guys who played in that match deserve some recognition because it was a game that simply had to be won. We had the whole of Chelsea’s future in our hands. I personally didn’t realise it at the time but a lot of the others did, and they went out there and played really well. I think we owe them a great debt. When you look at Chelsea now, it’s incredible to think how different it might have been if we hadn’t won at Bolton that day. Chelsea are a massive club but if we’d have been relegated then, we’d probably not be here now.”

 Eddie Niedzwiecki : “I suppose for everything coming off on the night then I would have to agree that it was probably my best game in a Chelsea shirt, although I like to think there were many other good nights. I remember it well. In fact, I’ve still got the video at home but I’ve only ever watched it once. It brings back nice, happy memories. Kerry scored and then they attacked wave after wave but things went my way on the night, including saving the penalty from Cliffy Carr. As Ray Harford said on the night, I could have just thrown my hat or gloves down onto the ball and I would have still saved the penalty. It was just one of those nights that goalkeepers have from time to time, and that was mine.”

Kerry Dixon : “The live televised game at Manchester City was a great game, and I scored another goal that I will always remember because it was talked about as one of the goals of the season for the sheer simplicity of the move: Canoville – Speedie – myself with the header. That put us top on goal difference from Sheffield Wednesday and enabled us to go into the last game at Grimsby knowing that we had to win to take the title. Again, a Pat Nevin cross and my header, and it was a goal that I rank as probably one of the best goals I’ve ever scored, for what it meant. The two goals that I always say probably meant as much to me as anything were two that followed in succession: that one at Grimsby, and the one in the Arsenal game at the start of the following season.”

Nigel Spackman : “We got on the coach for the trip back after we’d had a few bottles of champagne in the dressing-room and we went back to the hotel where we had spent the previous night. We went back for a few drinks – I think Batesey had given us a fiver between us – and there was a wedding reception going on. We had a few pictures taken with the bride and groom and all that, and then the bride was playing a game of pool with some of the lads. I don’t think the groom was too happy! We had a great time. It was a nice experience for everyone. On the journey back we stopped off to get more supplies in and it was a trip that I will never forget, and I think most of the other lads would say the same. They were spraying beer all over each other. I remember Ian McNeill fell asleep and we tipped beer all over his head and when he got up his hair was all curly. He looked like he’d just been to the hairdresser and had a soft perm. We got back and everybody was in what was the Stamford Bridge Arms at the time, just over the road from the stadium, and we stayed in there until I don’t know what time. We were in there with the supporters and the place was jumping. I don’t know how I got home that night, but I got home somehow. It was a fantastic time.”

Pat Nevin : “I remember after we won it and we went out and could see the reaction of the Chelsea fans. I thought ‘This is absolutely brilliant’. I remember the Chelsea fans were all on the pitch afterwards and we went upstairs – we were allowed into the directors’ room. Wow! Ken must have been disappointed – and we went onto the balcony of the East Stand and I sat with my feet dangling over the edge. There is a photo that exists somewhere of that and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a picture of me looking happier and more relaxed. It was contentment. I was sitting there thinking ‘We’ve done this. We are here to make these people happy and it’s all been done’. You could touch the supporters’ happiness. For me it was a year’s worth of work all on one day, but it was more than that for the Chelsea fans. It was a lot more than that! At that point, I think something came through that it was special.”

Steve Clarke : “I think that season was easy. We always said the year before that we had too many good players to go down, but unfortunately we allowed ourselves to get relegated. We knew that if we could keep the squad together and maybe add a couple of new players in the summer – as we did – that we would have a really strong chance of bouncing back, and that’s the way it proved. We had a difficult start to the Second Division campaign but I think that was just a hangover from the previous season, and once we clicked into gear we were a strong side, and certainly the best in that division. I think there was a feeling that we shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Obviously you are happy to get promotion, and you celebrate when it happens, but the underlying feeling was that we were just putting right the wrong of the relegation season. It took us a year to do it because that’s how long it takes in football, but we were now back to where we should be. It was more just a case of ‘Job done, now let’s get back into the First Division and get on with it’.”

John Bumstead : “As much as I think John Neal was probably the best manager I ever had, that was the one time when I didn’t think he managed how he should have. We went in at half-time 1-0 up after Micky Fillery scored just before the break and I remember that in the changing room at half-time, everybody was jumping around. We were doing alright but I remember thinking ‘It’s only half-time’, yet it was as if we’d won the game already. I thought he should have got things straight and told everybody to sit down. Spurs went 3-1 up, and it ended up 3-2, but I think we slung that one away, really, just because we already thought we’d won it. It really was like that, and I remember sitting there thinking ‘Have I missed something here, are we just playing a 45 minute game today?’ I think Spurs definitely upped it in the second half and we sat back a bit, but I do think we just threw it away.”