I think that this article from today's Observer is too interesting historically to be confined to the Sports board:
Back to the future:how Blues erased half a century of hurt
Will Buckley relives the club's previous championship triumph with some of the heroes of the team of '55
The previous time Chelsea won the league, it was a touch-and-go affair. Far from leading from the front, they snuck in with a well-timed run to head off more established contenders.
They were twelfth in the table at the end of October and did not reach the top until 23 March, with a win away to Cardiff. From there on in they did not lose another game until the title was won and they ended up finishing four points ahead of Wolves, Portsmouth and Sunderland, who were separated by goal average.
Ron Hockings remembers it well. He has seen 2,649 Chelsea games 'and that's just the first team. I've done 500 reserve games and 14,000 altogether'. In the 1955 championship-winning season he saw every match bar one. 'I got married and missed the Villa game [away], which we lost 3-2. Not very auspicious,' he said. 'We went to Canterbury for the honeymoon and that didn't affect anything because we [usually] only played once a week then.
The vital match was against Wolves on Easter Saturday and it attracted a crowd of 75,043 Chelsea's average gate of 48,350 was the highest in the country). 'The crowd was terrific,' recalls Stan Willemse, the left-back who now lives in Brighton, where he started his career. 'I loved it because the Shed was behind me at left-back and there used to be 40,000 on that bank.'
The day before, a lacklustre Chelsea team had drawn at home to Sheffield United. What's more, they had not won a match for the previous seven Easters. Hockings' friend Mick Mears, who worked at the box office, reminisces about the Wolves game. 'Parsons, Bentley and O'Connell all had good chances but were denied by Bert Williams. And then Billy Wright stopped a certain goal from Seamus O'Connell with his fist and 75,000 people yelled, Penalty!" We were stunned when the referee gave a corner, but then he consulted his linesman and pointed to the spot.
'Our hearts were in our mouths as we watched Peter Sillett step forward to take it, but ice-cool Peter smashed the ball into the net. The last 15 minutes seemed to last 15 hours.'
After that victory, a draw was ground out away to Portsmouth, one of the other contenders for the title. The match that clinched the title was against relegated Sheffield Wednesday at home on 23 April. For the previous month there had been a national newspaper strike, but the hacks were back for the title decider. Chelsea won 3-0 and The Sunday Times wrote: 'The moment to remember, the one that had been awaited by many for 50 years, came at last as the minute hand on the clock showed five minutes to five. At that precise point news came from Cardiff that Portsmouth [who could have denied them] had failed. Chelsea were champions. And the 50,000 that had spent most of the afternoon giving advice freely - sometimes cynically, often wittily - to their heroes stood to cheer as history was made.
'Well, how have Chelsea done it? Mostly by team spirit, fitness and direct play, unlike the old dreamy Chelsea in the days of the Pensioners. They have collected 24 points out of their last past 16 matches Those figures have helped to put Chelsea at the top of English football. If not in style then at least mathematically.'
After the match, the players appeared in front of the fans, then went to do radio interviews. 'Chelsea are the greatest club I've known,' said manager Ted Drake. 'The people here have taken it on the chin for 50 years and always come up smiling. That takes some doing.' Centre-forward and captain Roy Bentley said: 'When Notts County knocked us out of the Cup I said jokingly, "We'll have to win the league now" - and here we are!'
Willemse, a former Royal Marine, remembers: 'Everyone ran out on to the dog track and then we went inside and had a drink of some sort. And then I went home to Brighton and went to the Hove dog track and my dog, Bandits' Hut, won. For winning the championship we were offered £20, or we could go to the West End and have a suit made. I chose the suit.'
Halfway through the season, Willemse and his team-mates had not expected to win the title. 'It was round about Christmas or just after that we started playing a bit better,' he says. 'There were about half a dozen teams in the running, but we ended up finishing quite easy. We had a good spirit, we were good friends.
'We were very experienced. The whole team, without bragging, was all internationals. And Ted Drake was very quiet, very sober, and we liked him and we played for him.'
Three members of the team played for nothing. Jim Lewis, signed from Walthamstow Avenue, one the country's top amateur teams, shared the outside-left position with young Frank Blunstone. Derek Saunders, an ever-present at wing-half, also came from Walthamstow before being persuaded to turn professional. In later life he would be chief football coach at Westminster School before joining Hampstead CricketClub as groundsman.
Most extraordinary of all was Seamus O'Connell. The son of a wealthy Cumbrian farmer, he could not play often because he was needed at farmers' market on Thursdays. He would travel down by train carrying his boots by the laces. 'He was a skinny guy with curly hair,'says Hockings.
On his debut O'Connell scored a hat-trick against Manchester United, but Chelsea lost 6-5. So talented was he that Sunderland dropped local hero Raich Carter to accommodate him in their team before he signed for Chelsea. Yet, after 17 appearances for Chelsea, O'Connell decided to return to cattle farming and played out his career with Crook Town, a top amateur club.
The trophy was not presented until the beginning of the next season. 'They brought it out in a wheelbarrow,' says Hockings. 'A flat one, about five feet long, and the secretary walking with it with two security guards.'
It was appropriately low key. Chelsea followed their title by going into decline for a decade. 'Ted Drake was a down-to-earth feller,' says Willemse, 'and he told us he wanted to bring some youngsters in. He said, "Are you interested in Leyton Orient?" I played for a year and then I turned it in. I couldn't put in the performances like I should have done.'
Hockings says: 'People say it was crap because we won with only 52 points, but we really had to fight for it and win the darn thing. This time they have so many points because there's no competition. Back then every game was tight as hell.'
As may happen this year, Chelsea visited Manchester United with the title theirs. They were applauded on to the field by the opponents while the band played 'See the conquering heroes come'. Such a welcome is unlikely be repeated 50 years on.
