Who's who
Saturday, 25 March 06, 08:48 PM · Comments (0)
Nick Benfield - founder and editor
Chelsea Blog is maintained and obsessed over by an Englishman who goes by the pseudonym Nick Benfield. He has supported Chelsea since his early teenage years back in the 1980s. Nowadays he doesn't get to as many games as he would like, but his fervent passion - nay, obsession - for Chelsea Football Club continues to dominate his life.
His all-time favourite Chelsea player is Gianfranco Zola; favourite current player is John Terry. Memorable Chelsea moments include Roberto Di Matteo's stunning goal after just 42 seconds of the 1997 FA Cup final, the 4-2 victory over Liverpool (Chelsea were 2-0 down at half time) in the fourth round that year, and a 5-0 thrashing of Manchester United in a Premiership game at Stamford Bridge in 1999. Frank Lampard's brace against Bolton at the Reebok Stadium which sealed Chelsea's first top-flight title in 50 years, and the 4-2 demolition of Barcelona at the Bridge during the 2004/05 season are remembered fondly.
Favourite Chelsea possesions include a signed and framed photo of Joe Cole in full flight, a signed copy of My Winning Season by John Terry, and a shoulder bag (still used regularly) commemorating Chelsea's win over Real Madrid in 1971's Cup Winners' Cup final. There's also a Chelsea pencil case which somehow became legendary during Nick's time at the University of Worcester: Student Union bar, copious amounts of alcohol... you get the picture.
Nick lists Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and The Curse of Lono by Hunter S. Thompson, The Dharma Bums and On The Road by Jack Kerouac, London Fields by Martin Amis, Dangerous Parking by Stuart Browne, The Giro Playboy by Michael Smith, Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, Mobius Dick by Andrew Crumey, High Fidelity by Nick Hornby, and John Betjeman's Collected Poems as some of his favourite books; and The Big Lebowski, Withnail and I, American Splendor, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Pulp Fiction, Lost In Translation, Fight Club, Almost Famous, Donnie Darko and Sideways as among his favourite films. Musically speaking, he's into Pixies, Blur, Super Furry Animals, Sleater-Kinney, New Pornographers, Arcade Fire, The Fall, Broken Social Scene, Destroyer, British Sea Power, My Bloody Valentine and many other great bands. You can keep abreast of his current musical obsessions over at Last.fm, the social music website.
Jonathan started writing for the blog in September 2005 and assists in its day to day operation.
Being a fairly indecisive chap by nature, his favourite Chelsea moments change on an almost hourly basis, but the great Gianfranco Zola is his all-time Chelsea hero. The one-man mountain named Terry is his current favourite player. He is a season ticket holder in the Matthew Harding Upper and will talk football and Chelsea with anyone possessing more than three brain cells and the means to buy Stella Artois.
Music, books and films are another obsession and there probably isn't the bandwidth available to list everything here, but the Pixies, the Clash, Talking Heads and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are all currently on his iPod, Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins, James Ellroy (before he started writing three word sentences) and Tom Sharpe occupy his bookshelves and Once Upon a Time in America, Big Wednesday, Taxi Driver and Blade Runner are often found in his DVD player. But again, this could well have changed by tomorrow.
Other stuff that floats his boat includes Italian food, TV classics along the lines of Porridge and The Young Ones and the occasional flutter on the nags when Chelsea hasn't accounted for all of his near non-existent disposable income. He also has an unhealthy hatred for Barbara Windsor and Eastenders.
You can read his verdict on Chelsea games most Sundays in the Observer newspaper's Sport section.
Tony has been contributing since March 2005. He is a season ticket holder in the Matthew Harding Upper and has been passionately supporting Chelsea for 35 years - his first game was a 2-1 win over Derby County back in 1973.
His all-time favourite Chelsea players are Gianfranco Zola, Peter Osgood and Peter Bonetti; current favourite is Joe Cole. Memorable Chelsea moments include Lampard's Premiership-winning goals against Bolton at the end of the 2004/05 season, Di Matteo's strike in the 1997 FA Cup final, Peter Osgood's equaliser against Leeds in the 1970 FA Cup final replay, and hearing the news that Ken Bates had sold the club to Roman Abramovich. Worst moments are the 4-0 loss to Manchester United in the 1994 FA Cup final, the deaths of Matthew Harding and Peter Osgood, and being relegated in the play-offs against Middlesbrough in the bad old days.
Favourite books are Past Mortem by Ben Elton, Around Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawkes, and Wilt by Tom Sharpe. Pink Floyd's The Wall and Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti will always top his all-time greatest albums chart, while Kaiser Chiefs, Coldplay and Green Day are among his current likes. Cinematic favourites include Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill Volumes 1 and 2, The Truman Show, Full Metal Jacket, A Few Good Men, Goodfellas and Muriel's Wedding.
Tony's loves and interests outside of supporting Chelsea are his wife and two children, golf, France, anything French (culture / language / food / wine etc.), writing his personal weblog, and messing around with PCs. He drinks more Guinness than is good for him.
Mark is in the upper age group of contributors, saw his first game in 1963, and has witnessed all Chelsea's trials and tribulations since. Some are amazed he knows what a blog is, let alone how to make contributions, since he was born prior to the computer revolution and closer to the typewriter generation.
His favourite player of all time is Peter Osgood, who mastered the art of deceiving defenders and the crowd because he’d often pass the ball in a direction that was opposite to the obvious, constantly sending defenders and keepers in the wrong direction and causing the crowd to gasp with amazement.
In his mind he is a world-class football talent and still clings on to the belief that, by stepping up the dog walking to bring him to a higher level of fitness, he will become a legend as the oldest player to make his Chelsea debut.
He has a wide range of interests, and when he’s not watching Chelsea he’s usually watching football or thinking up football related innuendos to post to a blog to try and get a reaction.
Musical tastes reflect his age and Mark is constantly re-indexing his Elton John vinyls. Mark likes all food but particularly Italian and has the ambition to eat his way around all the food regions of Italy culminating in visiting every restaurant in Bologna.
Blingo was an early contributor.
Here's Blingo's favourite Chelsea memory in his own words...
My favourite season is the 1988/89 campaign spent in the old Second Division. Given some of the alternatives - our first Premier League title last year, Gullit's sexy football, Vialli's epic cup winning team - this may seem an odd choice, especially as we began by losing 2-1 at home to Blackburn Rovers in front of 8,722 bemused fans. In fact, we wouldn't win any of our first six games, and we had heartbreakingly sold our best player, the mesmerising Pat Nevin, to Everton in the summer.
Players and fans alike were still horribly traumatised by relegation, despite us finishing fourth from bottom of Division One. For the first and only time there was a play-off, involving three teams from the Second Division and one (us) from the first. We murdered Blackburn in the semi-final, Nevin scoring his final goal for Chelsea. The final was less pleasant, we lost 2-0 away to a pumped up Middlesbrough. Then, despite having 40,000 packed into Stamford Bridge, we played timidly and only managed to scrape a 1-0 win. The 2-1 defeat on aggregate condemning us to the dreaded drop.
The outlook was bleak, the club had massive financial problems, our support was noted only for violence and extinction was a real, daily possibility. However, that 1988/89 season turned into a memorable one, and I was lucky enough to attend just about every game. Despite our poor home support, we regularly took many thousands to away games, and it was these that provided the real highlights: an unlikely 2-0 victory away at Leeds, our first win of the season; a 7-0 spanking of Walsall, in which Gordon Durie scored five; a fantastic, breathtaking 3-2 win at Maine Road against Manchester City, with whom we were contesting the title.
Then almost exactly 17 years ago as I write this, on April 15th, 1989, our 28 game unbeaten run came to an end at Leicester City. That day will not be remembered for Chelsea's 2-0 defeat however. All afternoon the legion of Chelsea fans at Filbert Street had been tuned to their portable radios. Something was happening at Hillsborough, where Liverpool were playing Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semi-final. Eighty-nine fans died that day, on terraces I had stood on only a few seasons before. No one who was there will forget the sombre, silent mood in and outside the ground. A black day for football fans everywhere.
I think we sealed promotion the following week, beating Leeds 1-0 at home in front of 30,000 ecstatic fans, and we went on to post a jaw dropping 99 points. It was a world away from today's Chelsea. You could turn up five minutes before kick off and get in. You could buy a ticket with a handful of change. You could stand. You never saw any highlights on television. And Richard Keys had yet to be discovered roaming in a Borneo jungle. Of course, the title winning season of 2004/05 runs it close, but for me that 1988/89 season will always be extra special. It epitomised triumphing in the face of adversity - there were no Roman roubles in those days.
In our first game back in the top flight, in August 1989, we played Wimbledon at Plough Lane. Welcome back to the big time!
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