The Ultimate Chelsea Experience.

For everyone’s reading pleasure, I am putting up Chelsea songs to listen to.

Blue Day

Blue is the Color

We’ll Keep the Blue Flag Flying High

I skipped blogging about the game on Tuesday between Chelsea and Suwon Bluewings. The experience, especially with the English fans cheering almost all throughout, was just amazing. I am now confessing my love for both the club and the (English) fans. Although being around them made me realize there’s so much more chants I need to learn, it was nevertheless the best feeling. To sing with them is to feel like you’re part of a family. To raise your hands along with them makes you feel like one with them.

At times, I was one of the last remaining people to be singing a song. But that doesn’t matter anymore when you’re doing it for the club. While in some other circumstances, you’d be looking like a fool, in football, it’s a different matter. Unless you decide to be the sole singer of a rival club’s song… in front of thousands of a club’s supporters. Like this man:

From time to time, he would go back in front of us fans and sing “we are the champions my friend… we are the champions my friend…” Then when Beckham was already out in the field, he came back to us and mumbled some bullcrap again. When you dare do that, expect some consequences. This man got showered with celery, a veggie that’s associated with the club. Being the idiot and wanker himself, he still didn’t stop until somebody from the staff sent him away. A true wanker.

If anything, it was the singing fans that gave the game a great and exciting atmosphere. At least the Chelsea fans did. All Galaxy fans did were scream at the top of their lungs every single time Beckham was being shown on the big screen to be warming up… God knows how loud they were when he entered. (And okay, they were also cheering whenever they thought they were going to score against us.)

Everyone was just standing up, excited about his debut. Okay, I was excited too but I felt that these people were here to SEE him. That’s it. Not see him PLAY.

Of course, the Chelsea fans were standing up too… and chanting, “Beckham is a wanker… La la la la la.” Either that or “Who are ya! Who are ya! Who are ya!”

The chant “Who are ya!” was popular even during the Chelsea-Suwon match. It was funny and lovely to hear it being chanted to the completely outnumbered Suwon (Korean) fans.

Ah, the best chants? The second-runner up goes like this: “You’re supposed to, you’re supposed to, you’re supposed to be at HOME!” It was sung today while the Galaxy fans were busy hoping (and cheering, or is it the other wy around? nah) they would score and the Becks was gonna play soon.

The first runner-up goes like this: “Are you Tottenham, are you Tottenham, are you Tottenham in disguise!” The hatred towards Spurs fans. Just hilarious.

And the champion, the chant of all chants: “Your support, your support, your support is fucking shit!” When sang together, it just sounds so FUNNY. And AWESOME. As awesome as these people:

Of course, I also have to give credit to non-English fans. But of course, we were completely outnumbered. The couple sitting to my left were English, the 3 people sitting to my right were also English. Behind me, only 2 of the 6-7 were non-English. Get the idea? Now I’m even more excited about the prospect of going to London. To be at Stamford Bridge. To see our home.

Before the game started, I decided to stand by the ‘red carpet’. I figured I still had about 30 minutes before the game started. I decided to be nosy and waited to see who were going to pass by the carpet. I was right on time for the arrival of Frank Leboeuf. Before leaving for Marseille, he played for Chelsea at the back and won the FA Cup, the League Cup and a couple more with them. That’s kind of all I know about him. How I missed taking a photo with him, I don’t know.

I almost thought I was going to be late for the game. I decided to leave the house at about 350/355pm and got to the bus stop by 405, the time the bus was supposed to arrive. I saw it there… but while I was still on the other side, still about to cross. When I did, it was already too late. The bus has left. I missed it by like 2 seconds. I waited for another one to come… but after 20 minutes, still nothing. It was already 425 and the game was at 530. Travel time with buses always take so long and that particular travel would’ve taken an hour to an hour and ten minutes. I was panicking. God knew I was in dire need so he sent a cab despite not having called (on the phone) for one. I was staring at it while it was on the road, waiting for the green light. The driver, I saw later on, was looking at me too. He knew I needed him. I called him and despite the light being green, he waited for me to ask where I was headed. I quickly said, Home Depot Center in Carson. He let me in. In 20 minutes, I was there. Despite having paid 50 bucks, it was well worth it. I wasn’t going to miss even a second of this game for anything. See, I even caught Leboeuf.

I found the same old seat I had on Tuesday. It still sucked because at 530 the sun was still up and directly in front of us Chelsea fans. I quickly found the same people who were seated around me last time. Expectedly, there were more people now. The stadium was jampacked. More English guys behind me. They were funny. The moment I got there, they asked me my name and started chanting it. Several times more, they called my name. My bad I didn’t get to ask for their names and be nicer. I was gonna ask them at one point, but I just missed it completely. Apologies fellow Blues brothers! However, the lady seated beside me was nice enough to have asked for my name too. She has an awesome job. She’s part of an organization called CalSouth (and yes, there’s a CalNorth) which promotes ’soccer’ in California. What’s even cooler is that despite looking in her 30s, she told me she still plays football. Before as a STRIKER (or was it defender?), now as central midfielder. Now that’s AWESOME.

Just to share some more photos (this time of the team), here:

First during the warmp-up

Individual photos during warm-up:

On my way back home, I decided to just take the bus since I’ve already taken the cab earlier and doing so again would be very costly. While waiting for the bus, a guy apparently older than me was waiting for it too. There were many others waiting- a group of Koreans and a couple of Japanese guys. A little later on, a couple came. The guy looked English. I confirmed it when he asked the guy beside me something about the bus. I don’t know how it started but I ended up asking the guy beside me what he thought about Beckham playing for just 15 minutes. He was wearing an LA Galaxy shirt so I assumed he was a Galaxy fan. To my surprise, he told me he’s English. And an Arsenal fan. Only he’s been living here in California for about 7 years already. Then we started talking about Arsenal. I told him how they’ve been slow on the transfer market so far. He agreed and said he was relieved that Fabregas decided to stay. The other English guy apparently overheard and started talking too. After him, I asked if he was there for Chelsea. He said yes. Cool, I thought. From then on until the couple and I got off the bus, we (or more of him and the other English guy) were just talking about footy. It was… a dream conversation for me. It’s something I get once in a blue moon. Before we got to our stop, Ben (the one with the girl Jennifer) asked me how I ‘ended up with’ Chelsea. I can’t remember if he said something else or just that. I can remember him implying that Chelsea weren’t my first club. I told the 3 of them that Chelsea are in fact my first club. And that I only started liking football last year. I narrated how I ‘ended up’ with Chelsea. I had to say that them being champions (at least back then) was only a bonus for me liking them. Ben then followed, that always helps. I didn’t know they were on the same stop as me until they both stood up to get off the bus. We said goodbye to the other English guy who is Dave. We decided to continue the conversation while walking. What I failed to do was to get even the email addresses of any of these people (including the 4 silly guys who chanted my name) just so I can keep in touch with fellow Chelsea fans. That would have been awesome.

While still inside the bus, Ben was saying something interesting. Right now, he’s not so much a die-hard fan anymore as he was before. The first time we won the League after 50 years did it for him. When he was still 16/17 back in the 80s, he can remember how much of a dire situation the club was in being in the 2nd division. He experienced both the bad times and the good times with Chelsea. For him, winning the League for the second time in ‘06 wasn’t so much a big deal anymore. To have seen the Blues win in 05, something he didn’t expect in his whole lifetime he would see, was more than enough. Before, when the Blues still haven’t spent so much on players, things were so different. Right now, the race to the top is either a horse-race as it was last season or a full house. The interesting point he made was, it is more interesting now to be supporters of clubs in the middle who are not sure of taking points in any game they play. He said, Chelsea fans now have the arrogance completely absent in the past. For instance, playing Charlton at home. The talk is no longer whether we were gonna take the 3 points or not. Instead, the talk is by how many goals we would win. I guess the point is, being in the middle always makes you look forward so much more to games… and the thirst for winning, which is not always a certainty compared to the clubs on top, is much more too. That completely makes sense to me. So at the moment, it is not just being stuck with Chelsea for Ben (although he said he is still a member of the official fanclub) but also, it is about finding interest in other clubs who fight to go up and up further, not just stay up.

Too bad our conversation had to end soon. It would’ve been awesome to have chatted with the two of them a little longer.

There’s really not much else I can say here except how wonderful my first football experience was. I am on cloud #9 right now and even more in love with football. I want to watch more live matches, if only LA Galaxy didn’t suck. (Currently, they’re 2nd lowest in the league, winning only 3 of their last 12 matches. Then add to that the 2 defeats they suffered in this tournament. Seems like the pressure to lift his club is on Beckham… Now given that pressure, his ankle will swell even more.)

Anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m just completely giddy over this whole ultimate Chelsea experience. This is truly something I would always remember, especially that I don’t know when I will see them play again. Live.

For more photos from the Chelsea-LA Galaxy game, here.