Osgood V Bates

The email received from Steve Whitton is as follows:

Hi Steve

I would like to start by saying that I don’t usually write in much about anything to anyone but after reading the "Osgood Bates" article I just had to. I was 13 years old when my old man took me up to Manchester to see the replay in 1970, I still have the plastic cushion from the seat!!

It is one of the most fantastic memories of my life and when I think back to it, even without watching the video, it’s as if it was just last week. Ok I was a kid and now I’m 45 so obviously the occasion seemed much larger than life then, but the old man still has fond memories of it and he’s 72 now, in fact he saw them win the league in `55, but I’m sure he rates the 60s side better.

As you so rightly said Osgood, Cook, Hutchinson, Bonetti, Harris, Webb, Hudson and the rest (how the names just roll off the tongue) are all Chelsea heroes and will be for all time, even players like Tambling Venables and Bridges were great players and will always be remembered as such. No matter what happens in the future, even if we win the league and the champions league nothing can change that, despite what Bates says, and now we come to my point.

If what he is supposed to have said is true then there is one thing I just cannot understand, I mean, he can think that and that’s ok but to actually say it is not only ridiculous but downright stupid. Does he think he’s going to make friends by making statements like that? Quite the opposite in fact and as the club is some 90 odd million in debt to risk driving people away is not good business is it? I mean who is this guys PR man? But of course he hasn’t got one because they tell you what to say and we all know that could never be, but then Chairman (or is it king or maybe God even) Ken never did care about what other people thought.

On the other hand I’ve been a Chelsea fan (I wont say supporter because I now live in Sweden and don’t get over so often) for 38 years and like me I suppose most fans carry on regardless. Once blue always blue no matter what.

Despite what I’ve said I still admire and respect him for what he’s done for the club, although I’m not too sure about Ranieri(but then who is). Its just sometimes he acts like a complete f**king idiot.

Forever blue

Steve Whitton


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