Chelsea 2 Blackburn Rovers 0
League Cup 4th round
Wednesday 1 November 2023
Bridge bulletin
The context
John and I were on 89 League grounds each following our visit to Wrexham. This would be number 90 (I actually came here twice on school trips, but it seems wrong to count matches spent getting sugared up on Fruit Salad chews and Space Dust). We had been after tickets for ages, with a favourable cup draw for one of our teams long seeming the ideal scenario. Rovers – after wins over Walsall, Harrogate and Cardiff – eventually obliged.
The history
North End product
Modern Fulham (where, despite its affected title, this club lives) is pretty well-to-do. Fruit and takeaway stalls along North End Road tweely imitate old London, while surviving remnants of working-class housing estates – which once proliferated here – find themselves tucked well out of sight and threatened still further by Boris Johnson’s self-serving schemes for Earl’s Court. Reminders, however, lurk around many a dark corner.
track record
Victorian sport thrived locally. Lillie Bridge Grounds opened in 1866 near West Brompton station, on the site of present-day Lillie Square. This oval stadium became Amateur Athletics Club headquarters (its 12,000 capacity also attracted the 1873 FA Cup Final between Wanderers and Oxford University). Athletics then was a boisterous spectator sport, akin to horse-racing and boxing for popular appeal. Crowd disturbances and betting scandals proliferated.
race riot
Influential rivals the London Athletics Club set up a rival venue shortly afterwards at nearby Stamford Bridge. Only Fulham Western Hospital separated them. This led to competition for crowds; not all spectators behaved themselves, and Lillie Bridge closed permanently after serious rioting during 1879. One man died as disgruntled racegoers battled police before pulling down wooden stands and burning the wreckage.
Extension fable
The London & North Western Railway Company opened a coal station where Lillie Bridge Grounds had stood, utilising West London Extension tracks that crossed London from Clapham to Willesden via Cremorne Bridge. This once-busy route suffered from declining passenger traffic post-War, but has now been restored and operates as part of the London Overground franchise.
Lillie Bridge (Kevin Lane0
Lillie Bridge depot – unlike Fulham’s several coal yards – survives to the present day. This ornately historic facility on West Brompton Station’s far side initially served the Metropolitan Railway, whose Victorian infrastructure now carries London Underground services. “Metroland” branding celebrated London suburban living, a unique demographic that has been notably celebrated by poet John Betjeman and in Julian Barnes’ eponymous novel.
wheel deal
These different lines triangulated land at neighbouring Earl’s Court which was used for entertainment and displays. The Gigantic Wheel attracted thousands of visitors between 1895 and 1906; Imre Karalfy’s exhibition hall would be replaced in 1935 by an arte moderne structure housing its own indoor lake. 1990s expansion saw another building, Earl’s Court 2, built over redundant sheds at one end of Lillie Bridge depot.
ornate
Both have now been demolished. This whole area – including Lillie Bridge and sundry social housing – is earmarked for replacement by four “urban villages”, which will probably be even more dreadful than they sound. The project somehow managed to prevent both Lillie Bridge and C. Howard Crane’s ornate exhibition hall from gaining listed status. London continually reinvents itself, using and reusing the same land; some iterations, however, feel more disappointing than others.
characteristic
Chelsea FC came about in much the same way. Businessman Gus Mears decided to use Stamford Bridge Athletic Grounds for football, and founded his own club to play there. Famous Scottish engineer Archibald Leitch designed a vast bowl – built on spoil from the nearby underground line – capable of accommodating enormous numbers of fans, inspired by and strongly resembling recent Glasgow projects at Ibrox and Hampden Park. Leitch’s characteristic gabled stand would survive until 1973.
“A Chelsea Cup-Tie”, Charles Cundall (Manchester Art Gallery)
Stamford Bridge hosted three Cup Finals and three England matches before 1932. It also staged ten pre-War Cup semis. The official record attendance of 82,000 watched Chelsea play Arsenal here in 1935; this would however be exceeded by their 1945 friendly against Moscow Dynamo, when gates were broken down and an estimated 100,000 people gained entry.
bicycle race
Financial problems eventually saw athletes banished to accommodate more lucrative tenants. First speedway riders the Stamford Bridge Pensioners moved in, then greyhound racing took over. Dogs ran here for 36 years and generated enormous profits immediately after World War II. The Bridge became known as a fast track that produced several world records.
awkward isolation (CFC)
Ground improvements followed. Chelsea wanted to cover one terraced end and provide additional seating above the other; neither project, though, would be fully completed. Financial restraint following World War II restricted their new stand’s size so that it perched in awkward isolation over the north-east corner. Basic roofing opposite – which eventually became known as The Shed – only ever sheltered a small part of that end’s curved embankment.
The journey
beyond our Ken (TFL)
I didn’t feel very well, so John kindly agreed to drive us to and from Cannock (where a Travelodge awaited post-match). Parking was arranged on someone’s drive behind the North End Road; this arrangement worked pretty well, although roadworks that suddenly appeared outside West Kensington tube station during the game had obviously been planned by a Tottenham supporter. Heavy rain then lashed our M40 route home and we eventually got to bed at around 3am.
The ground
monster (Bob Lilliman)
Back in 1977 my junior school class found the Bridge still looking decidedly oval. Leitch’s basic design was largely intact; sweeping terraces retained their old scale, but his original understated East Stand had gone and a towering dun-coloured replacement of glass and steel now covered one side of the disused dog track. This three-tier monster had been designed as phase one of extensive ground improvements, which – given Chelsea’s declining crowds – now seemed unlikely ever to take place.
swingers
Optimism seemed entirely forgivable when this stand was conceived. Tommy Docherty’s exciting side challenged for honours throughout the Sixties, and a settled habit of falling charismatically short only added to their romantic mystique. England swung like a pendulum did, the King’s Road partied more than most and Docherty’s playboy team happily joined in. Chelsea – under Dave Sexton – went on to win the 1970 FA Cup and 1971 Cup Winners’ Cup.
best West (Bob Lilliman)
By now a new West Stand had appeared. This basic, cavernous structure overhung the reprofiled former side terrace; affordable bench seating – basic wooden planks atop concrete blocks – in its front paddock proved popular with some of Chelsea’s livelier supporters. The old North Stand improbably survived until 1976.
Shed heads
Many 70s-era Chelsea fans enjoyed their reputation for violence. The short walk from Fulham Broadway tube to Stamford Bridge was one of football’s most intimidating, but Mr Johnston’s excursions laughed in the face of danger. Mounted police clattered about as we made for our seats, noisy skinheads queued behind the notorious Shed’s ramshackle wedge-shaped terrace and vivid smells – burgers, urine, stale beer, horse manure – assailed juvenile noses.
different
Things feel very different four decades later. Occasional hooligan throwbacks remain – we encountered one ageing No.2 crop complete with bleached jeans, DMs and green flying jacket, commenting loudly about the general inferiority of Northerners – but they seem caricatures these days, solitary old men no longer able to hunt in packs. The past is another country. Time to move on.
hemmed in (Historic England)
The ground has changed too. This location always felt hemmed in, with access between buildings on Fulham Road via openings known as the Britannia, Bovril and Stamford Gates. But now it can barely be seen, thanks to Chelsea Village – less rural idyll than 1990s retail nightmare – whose buildings occupy the former Shed End’s curved footprint. Only a scruffy rear wall survives behind restaurants, hotels and apartments.
proportionate response
Modest stands cover the former greyhound track at both ends. Their corners merge with two far taller counterparts – a smart West Stand and the good old East, still going strong after forty years and finally in proportion with everything else. Stamford Bridge has at last achieved the model envisaged by those ambitious architects, a completely enclosed all-seater stadium. Unfortunately its capacity is now way too small.
pigs might fly (gilbertscott.org)
Recent dalliances with alternative sites at Battersea Power Station and (inevitably) Earl’s Court have been strangely reminiscent of that grandiose 1970s scheme. Big new grounds for Arsenal, Tottenham and West Ham significantly upped the stakes, proving that – as ever – money shows scant regard for heritage. I personally hope they stay; there’s a small part of my childhood here, after all.
Flesh and wine
Cock pic
For some reason I thought the best cure for my high temperature would be downing six pints in one of several pubs we’d been recommended. The Cock Tavern proved a historic old boozer, first licensed in 1713 and rebuilt twice since. It had polite doormen, was laid-back enough for us to mingle amicably with characterful home supporters and served Young’s London Special. Reckless strategies occasionally work.
endangered
The situation now called for a massive hotdog. We found one on what must surely be SW6’s last remaining waste land, ideally situated within eating distance of the Stamford Gate. Burger stands once proliferated around football grounds; now they lurk in quiet corners, marginalised by relentless regulation, fanzones, street food vendors and other such nonsense. Fried onions with that guv’nor? You bet.
The game
filled (BRFC)
Despite having parked up at 4pm we still managed to miss kick-off. Even by our standards this must be some sort of record. Several hundred others found themselves in a similar boat, but everyone eventually negotiated the stewards’ prolonged body searches and Chelsea’s poky away entrance. Rovers had sold all their tickets so 3,000 travelling fans filled both tiers in one corner of the soi-disant Shed. Its lower tier turned out to be “rail standing”, which is just like standing in a seat but with less scope for bouncing around. “Dull standing”, if you will.
big Ben
There was little reason to bounce anyway, as – despite fairly disinterested opposition – Rovers never ventured out of damage limitation mode against the outrageously expensive home side. They might have had a penalty at 0-0, but the Premiership ref – no VAR tonight – predictably chose to ignore Conor Gallagher’s handball following Callum Brittain’s dangerous cross. Benoit Badiashile (tap-in) and Raheem Sterling (accomplished run and well-placed curler) did the damage for Chelsea.
Bovril fate
We swerved little gangs of yelping Blackburn youth and wandered back through the half-lit Bovril Gate onto Fulham Road’s chilly brightness, enduring some half-hearted mockney pisstaking en route. It seems London’s most dangerous quarter-mile – like much about modern football – is nowadays simply irritating.
Teams and goals
Chelsea: Sanchez, James (Gusto 62), Disasi, Badiashile (Colwill 62), Cucurella, Gallagher, Ugochukwu, Wnzo (Matos 87), Palmer (Madueke 87), Jackson (Caicedo 76), Sterling. Unused subs: Petrovic, Maatsen, Casteldine, Washington.
Blackburn: Wahlstedt, Brittain, Hill, Carter (S Wharton 62), Pickering, A Wharton, Markanday (Dolan 62), Travis, Moran (Sigurdsson 74), Garrett, Leonard (Ennis 74). Unised subs: Hilton, Gamble, Batty, Rankin-Costello, Tronstad.
Goals: Badiashile 30, Sterling 59.
Attendance: 39,548.
