The Thoughts of an Attendee

Used with permission from Dave McCrossen.

We all hoped April 30th 2005 would be a special day, but 'wow', what a day?

Unfortunately for me it started earlier than expected due to a telephone call from Piers at 7.00 a.m. to tell me he would be late. We weren't due to pick him up until 8.30 so why he had to ring early remains to be seen. I only live ten minutes away Piers. Rose was not impressed by missing her morning lie in.

I wanted to find out what it was like to sit behind the wheel of the limo so I gave James our driver the day off (I don't know why they say rich bloke). First pick up would have been Dr Pete but he wasn't coming as he had to go to the wedding of one of his patients (the consultation he gave her must have worked for once). As Piers was going to be late I decided to pick Kevin up first but just got to the bottom of my drive when I received a call from Piers saying he wasn't going to be late after all. After collecting those two I diverted to pick up Martin, our member of the cloth, from Northampton and we were on our way. Martin tried to convince me that driving up the M1 was a far better prospect than taking the toll road even though the M1 route would be 50 miles further. Luckily my gold card worked at the toll as I don't usually deal in cash. Mind you, the thought that Martin might be going to pay the toll brought crowds out to witness the event but it was not to be and they slowly dispersed, causing even more havoc on the motorway.

Our car was the second one in the car park when we arrived at 12.45. We tend to leave early but that's all part of the day. Dave and Ian eventually arrived after negotiating all the hold ups on the M6. We weren't drinking that much (yes really) as we wanted to keep a clear head for what we were about to witness. Even Kevin only managed one barrel of Carlsberg. A good time to buy shares in Carlsberg I thought as the price was bound to drop with Piers and Kevin taking it easy. After a satisfying mean (can you believe it was so big Ian couldn't eat all his, let alone finish ours) and a bit of banter with the other Chelsea fans, we set of to the ground at around 4.00 p.m. It was downhill to the ground so I didn't complain too much about giving James the day off.

We put the Barmy Army flag in the best place available and waited for the game to commence.

The first half was pretty poor to say the least. The ref was almost going to give us the advantage on one occasion but it was not to be. The second half was much better. We passed the ball to our own players which helped. When Frank put the first goal in the net we almost went over the barriers on the upper tier. Then there was that pass from Maca to Frank for the second goal. It seemed to happen in slow motion, or did it take him ten minutes to put the ball in the net. Dave decided to attempt a kamikaze jump on his own for this celebration. With a leap in the air and a shove from Martin he almost fell from the roof.

Game over, we really are CHAMPIONS. We were there weren't we? I don't want to wake up if it was a dream.

We only had two quick drinks back at the pub. We had been at the ground so long it was nearly closing time. Then the race was on down the M6 towards home. It seemed like every car contained Chelsea Fans all celebrating by trying to go faster than everyone else. Anyway, a four hour journey only took just under three.

Our day had come to an end. Chelsea are Champions and the Barmy Army were there like always. Rain or shine we will always be there.