Product Description

Incredible as it seems now, just 20 odd years ago Chelsea were playing Second Division football in front of a few thousand supporters at a near derelict Stamford Bridge. The club was teetering on the brink of financial ruin and property developers hovered over the ground like vultures.

The follow-up to the best-selling King's of the King's Road, A Serious Case of the Blues re-visits Chelsea in the Eighties through the thoughts and memories of the players and supporters who were there.

The book re-discovers a time which - despite the crumbling terraces, the hooliganism and the struggle for survival both on and off the pitch - retains a hugely significant place in Chelsea history and folklore.

This was the heyday of the Shed, of skin tight le coq sportif shirts, blond highlights and true blue cult heroes like Kerry Dixon and Pat Nevin...not to mention glory in the Full Members Cup! A million miles from Abramovic's modern day Blues, but close to the hearts of Chelsea supporters nevertheless.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36944 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-24
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Synopsis
The follow-up to the acclaimed and best-selling 'Kings of the King's Road: The Great Chelsea Team of the 60s & 70s', 'A Serious Case of the Blues' goes back in time to the 1980s when Stamford Bridge was a crumbling wreck of a stadium and, at times, the old ground had a team to match. And yet, despite financial crisis after financial crisis and the threat of property developers moving in, relegation to the Second Division and hooliganism on the crumbling terraces, it is an era still fondly remembered by Chelsea fans and one from which true blue heroes like Kerry Dixon and Pat Nevin still emerged. In 'A Serious Case of the Blues' Clive Batty has tracked down the players - from Kerry Dixon to Micky Droy, David Speedie to Pat Nevin - and fans who remember with affection a troubled era, and the result is a colourful trip down memory lane. The 80s may only have been 30 or so years before Abramovich's modern day Chelsea, but it feels like a million.

Customer Reviews

Fantastic nostalgia
This book actually starts in the late seventies, which makes it an even more enjoyable trawl through yesteryear than its title would otherwise suggest. The rather desperate and certainly dismal end of the seventies for Chelsea Football Club help place the early eighties years into a suitably depressing context of hooliganism, racism, low crowds and pitiful defeats (six nil and four nil to Rotherham in the same catastrophic season are a good, though by no means isolated, example of the woes inflicted on Chelsea fans at the time).

This book will be rewarding reading for those that, despite the often awful football, enjoyed the period as well as required reading for any newer fan who has only been introduced to the sanitised version of football post Italia 90, Gazza, Hillsbrough, Fever Pitch and Sky TV saturation. For those that were there at the time it is an incredibly accurate and honest portrayal of a bygone era; one that probably only those who were present during the time can look back on with any genuine affection. For others it is a valuable piece of history when football was tribal, frowned upon and gereally downright rubbish in terms of both spectacle and facilities. For new Chelsea fans used to padded seats, a rich owner's largesse and winning trophies it is a useful reminder that it wasn't always so.

The story of a turbulent decade incorporating near bankruptcy through to hope again is told with real feeling and humour by someone who was clearly there throughout, with many insights and contrinbutions from other well respected fans. This book is highly recommended and is the definitive no gloss guide to an important period in the club's history.