Foreword

Last year I went down to Chelsea to watch the match against another of my old clubs, Everton. Kerry Dixon found out that I would be around and invited me upstairs for some corporate glad handing in the West Stand.

Even though this sort of schmoozing is the antithesis of everything I was about when I played for the club, I thought I could have a bit of fun winding up myself along with anyone sufficiently pompous or self important to warrant it as well.

In the end, the sea of faces I was introduced to 45 minutes before the game couldn’t have been more friendly, considerate or indeed blank when I walked into the room. Though the age range was pretty wide, the vast majority certainly didn’t recognise either my name or me… if 90 minutes is a long time in football then sixteen years is an eternity.

I wasn’t at all offended by the lack of recognition, I have always passionately believed if any players deserve to be singled out for special treatment it ought to be the current crop. Ex players at any club continually going on about how good it was in the old days can be a bore, as well as a negative drain on the present squad, especially during difficult times.

Happily there are very few difficult times down at the Bridge these days, so a little bit of nostalgia mixed in with some extraordinarily accurate history might not be such a bad thing after all.

Kelvin Barker was there all the way through the 1980s; he must have been because the information and stories he has gathered here could not have been found by mere research. What shines through in the first half of the book is a very personal and honest perspective from a fan, not a hackneyed journalist or an ex player looking back with an outlook clouded by his own pride and prejudice.

Until I read this book, I wasn’t aware of just how much of the history from that time I had rewritten in my own head. So as a chronicle to anyone recently converted to Chelsea, as well as for those of us who were around back then, it provides an authoritative education on an important time for the club.

It will be a particularly intriguing read for large numbers of fans that followed the Blues up and down the country during the Eighties. I know for a fact that many of them can no longer afford to pay Premiership prices and the loss of their amazing support should be a great sadness to the club.

For all the positive memories lovingly recalled, the negative times certainly aren’t glossed over; from the stupid cup defeats and eventual relegation, to the curse of the hooligans who brainlessly almost destroyed all the beauty at the club as well as in the wider game in general.

More than anything else, ‘Celery! – Representing Chelsea in the 1980s’ is a labour of love from someone who adored the club. The second half of the book contains the thoughts of some of us who were on the pitch at the time and those considerations are interesting to compare with Kelvin’s own judgements.

These personal interviews are long enough to give more than just a flavour from the protagonists, which is as unusual as it is welcome. The link to the present day exists with the thoughts of Stevie Clarke in the final chapter. Having played alongside me in his early days, he stayed with the club as it grew into something almost unrecognisable from the Ken Bates and John Neal era. If this chapter is a taster for Part Two and ‘Celery! – Representing Chelsea in the 1990s’, I am looking forward to it already.

 Pat Nevin – March 2006