I already started a thread like this in the Liverpool forum .. Here in Hamburg, the press reports that numerous english clubs want to sign SV Hamburgs iranian right winger Mehdi Mahdavikia, according to todays newspapers, Chelsea leads the pack hunting for Mehdi... Anyone here who can confirm this rumor ? I think Mahdavikias agent is spreading these rumors, he's in contract talks for Mehdi with Hamburg at the moment and wants to squeeze out big money... Mehdis contract expires in 2004. But Mehdi is an excellent player and just played his best season ever for Hamburg, so maybe the rumors are true ??
Well obviously Chelsea are thrilled to be linked with a player such as the great Mehdi Mahgapogwauyegwuigiy. I have no doubt that Chelsea will gladly pay up to 25 mil euros for his services next season. After all, we are in the Champions League and need to bring in players of Mehdi Mahjahjkklsjoisjaau's calibre to compete. Where should we have this payment mailed to? I assume a personal check is ok, please confirm if it is not. I for one cannot wait to see Mehdi Mahopinvbzvbfdkikajl playing in blue next season. I will be keeping my fingers crossed that this deal happens.
Boy, Chelseas image on the continent must indeed be changing if an Iranian would even consider moving here. It was not all that long ago that CFC were known as one of the-if not thee-most violently right wing of all the hoolie lot. Not that we were ever in the market for any sort of classy player in those days anyway
@clanblue : Well, i can not consider myself to be a close follower of the EPL fan scene, but Chelsea doesn't have a 'right wing' image in Germany. To be honest, compared to London clubs like Arsenal, Tottenham and West Ham, Chelsea has the image to be some kind of posh and 'parvenu' club - i think, the mst77 post does underline that .
Indeed you are correct my friend. That is todays image. In my day-during the 1980's we were most definitely as far to the EXTREME right as one could possibly go. It was so bad at times that even fans of colour were attacked by fellow fans outside the gates and told to fuck off and support somebody else. Players of colour were given a torrid time indeed.
But now you have loads of ( excellent) coloured players in your ranks - and they seem to feel comfortable at Stamford Bridge, otherwise, a player like Hasselbaink wouldn't have returned, would he ? Anyway, the Mahdavikia rumor seems to be a newspaper hoax started by his agent, at least i hope so because it would hurt to lose such a good player...
To be honest i had not heard that one. I am going to log onto the official chat site in a bit and talk to some of the regulars there.maybe they have heard something. The Forssell thing in the German papers yesterday has everybody abuzz though.He is a player that we wnat to come back and play for us.
Forssell is a very classy player - way better than Gudjohnson imho. He nearly saved Moenchengladbach on his own to avoid relagation with 7 goals and a bunch of assists in the last matches. Borussia Dortmund is willing to spend about 8 Mio Euros on hím ...
Yes, by all accounts he had a great run in for them. I am thinking that gist of the story is indeed true. Sad to say, but i think we will lose somebody that was here this season in order keep him here next season. Gudjohnsen had an odd sort of season. He hasn't really set any bench mark to judge him by yet-though he did knock in 20 plus for the trotters the season wew signed him-in the EPl. If Forssell comes he is my bet to leave.
I wouldn't doubt this for a second. No doubt it comes from the association with the Rangers of Scotland and Linfield of the North of Ireland. The blue triumvirate...or Clanblue. During the early 80's if you were going to Stamford bridge and passed any of the many chaps that had stalls or boards set up in front of the gates you would have seen a unique scarf. It was made up of one half Chelsea and one half Rangers. Back in the dark days of CFC it wasn't unusual at all to have many right wing cretins at the club.Rangers and Linfield sent down their share from time to time. Of course a load of ours felt obligated to return the favour-although most of them went to Glasgow as NI was quite dangerous at the time.
I became a Chelsea fan in the 80s in Texas, and wasn't really aware of all the goings on. I might not have been a fan if I had known about all that at the time, but I'm hooked now.
Well you must understand also that this was not the attitude of all the fans.If 101 fans went to a pub and 100 of them behaved and went on their merry way after the game and 1 cretin got stuck into some other yob the headlines in the rags the next day would have read.."100 Chelsea fans in pub brawl". That was the attitude of the press. Most of the fans that were involved with these far right groups weren't really Chelsea fans at all though.They just sort of got attached to the various other cretins who happened to go along to the games for the aggro.In time the recruiters for these lunatic fringes--and yes, there were actually people who would actively try to recruit to the various mob elements of these groups--happened to get highly involved in some of the areas in Hammersmith. They even set up a sort of headquaters in some pubs in the area. On of the more famous of the pubs was the Adelaide which was a sort of watering hole for C18 (combat18) which was a very violent group of "enforcers" for the BNP.They had many many so called Chelsea fans in their lot and when they got nicked it was as Chelsea fans as opposed to right wing lunatics. Again though one has to take into account 2 things. One being the nature of the times.It was a time when aggro went on all over.The fact that Chelsea gained such notoriety was due in large amount to the fact that Chelsea fans went to away matches in large numbers which was a sure fire way of sparking aggro.Also Chelsea were one of the few clubs who had fans go to away games during the ban on away support. And also there were many Chelsea that went for aggro and nothing else. But, for every one like that there was several dozen that wern't. I mentioned the scarfs of Chelsea/Rangers. I should also point out that it was never a big seller and many people took offense to it and tried to get them baned from selling them.They eventually moved over to the mid teen gates (shed entrances) where they were generally more favourably received with that crowd (i was North Stand) as that was where the lunatic fringes-headhunter-C18-NF etc etc all packed in for the games. It was a very troubling time for the club and no doubt the crowd that goes today are about as far away in attitude from those lads as i am now in miles. I could go on for pages here about the economic hardship of the time and Thatcherism and strikes and so on and so forth that drove these things like wind to a fire but i am geting tired of typing. Suffice it to say that it was the loud and violent MINORITY that were a part of that scene.
Clanblue, I'm sure it was the minority of fans that were involved. But like you said, it's all in how it's reported. In the states (before the Internet, of course), you only caught the highlights or results. And if you didn't know better, it would've been easy to write off a club as this or that because you didn't know better. Anyway, I'm a Chelsea fan now. Nothing's changing that.
Exactly. I've had a couple of run ins and dicey situations because of the history of the club. ************ em' cause its Chelsea all the way now. I don't follow the damn team because of their politics or other fans behavior...
Ah, ClanBlues dissertation on football agro very nice. The times were very different then. I remember chatting to Roddy Doyle about it all, he grew up in Dublin and is a very big Chelsea fan, and we concluded that no one was innocent. All the teams had firms in those dark days. Right wing political football thugs? There were quite few. And now its different, multi-cultural, the working classes have always been fickle y'know. Although, the politics of some Celtic fans, for instance, was more than a little suspect and there was a helluva lot of racism in Scottish fitba and not a lot of black or foreign players in the Scottish leagues at all, if any. And the whole Catholic Prod thing will always be tedious to me. Organised gangs? West Hams ICF were quite infamous – Inter Celery Firm I think it stands for. Millwall – the surgeons, the half way line, etc, Birminghams Zulus, etc. There were loads of these silly little bleeders running around. Really very silly indeed. There was some violence, but there was lot more posturing and running up and down if you ask me. Finally, being a Chelsea supporter you had to be an hard bastard you were always a lot tougher than some weasel who followed the Sperz or the Arse, or one of those teams that play in red. You couldn’t help it really. Being a Chelsea fan you never expected to win all the time and hence you had some real grit.