Post by QPR Report on Aug 20, 2009 6:40:43 GMT
Some strange choices: Chris Garland but NOT Terry Venables or Barry Bridges?
Three ended up at QPR: John Spencer, Ray Wilkins and John Hollins.
The Times - The Top 50 Chelsea Players.
No 50: Winston Bogarde
Image :1 of 47
Giles Smith
50 Winston Bogarde
2000-04, 12 total appearances, 0 goals
A controversial selection for this list, maybe. But read the stats: four years with Chelsea from 2000, four first-team starts, £8,240,000 earned at the totally cash-tastic rate of £686,666 per game. Doesn’t matter how you look at it, the stone-faced Dutchman was a wage-bill legend, not to mention a small, self-contained essay on the state of football at the start of the 21st century. What price a retrospective testimonial? The fans never got the chance to say goodbye.
49 Stan Willemse
1949-56, 221 total appearances, 2 goals
Left back in the Chelsea side that won the first division title in 1954-55. Didn’t hang around to celebrate on the day because he wanted to get back to Brighton where his greyhounds were due to run. It’s all about priorities.
48 Albert Ferrer
1998-03, 113 total appearances, 1 goal
Sharp and underrated right back who was a key player in the 1998-99 side that qualified for the Champions League for the first time. In the old days, one reflected, football had been full of players called Albert. Come the turn of the century, though, there were almost none. And the ones there were came from Spain.
47 John Spencer
1992-96, 137 total appearances, 43 goals
The gobby, pocket-sized Scot seizes an honorary place here, not because (according to Rick Glanvill, the distinguished Chelsea historian) he shaved his head as a direct consequence of reading an Andy McNab book (though he gets points for that, obviously), but for having scored the greatest European goal in Chelsea’s history – against FK Austria in the Cup Winners' Cup in November 1994, beating the goalkeeper after an 80-yard sprint with the ball, which even now can raise sweat on the palms of anyone watching it.
46 Ian Britton
1971-82, 289 total appearances, 34 goals
In here in recognition of ten years' loyal service between 1972 and 1982, but, more particularly, I’ll admit, on account of the hair. How did he get it to stand so tall and so still? And how was he not forever losing things in the ear flaps? Like car keys, for instance. Or even his car. Hairdressers still marvel over this.
45 Chris Garland
1971-75, 114 total appearances, 31 goals
Scored some good goals in the early Seventies, but I’m afraid he’s in here for reasons relating to hair, too. So much of it in one place! And when he grew a moustache, his head appeared to have been hijacked by hair. Extraordinary.
44 George Weah
2000, 15 total appearances, 5 goals
If we’re going to be literal about it, the Liberian goalscorer falls into the category of one of the greatest players who ever played for Chelsea rather than one of the greatest ever Chelsea players. (You’d post Tommy Lawton and Len Goulden on the same list, as well as Didier Deschamps, Brian Laudrup and Hernan Crespo – supremely accomplished, but we probably have to admit that they had done all their accomplishing before they arrived at Chelsea.) Still, the AC Milan hero’s Chelsea debut, in January 2000, when, merely a couple of hours after flying in to London, he came on as a sub and headed the winner against Spurs, was a carnival occasion for everyone who witnessed it. Incidentally, Weah is also the only former Chelsea player to run for president in his native country (in 2005, unsuccessfully, as it turned out), though some of us have been on at Eidur Gudjohnsen to have a crack.
43 Vivian Woodward
1909-15, 116 total appearances, 34 goals
When Woodward joined Chelsea at inside right in 1909, the club suddenly had three England internationals at the heart of its attack, the other two being Jimmy Windridge and George Hilsdon. Glory days, then – apart from the matter of the World War looming on the horizon, obviously.
Times Archive, 1954: Vivian Woodward, Times Obituary
42 Graeme Le Saux
1987-93 & 1997-03, 312 total appearances, 16 goals
One of the greatest ‘prodigal son’ tales ever told, west of the bible. Young, raw, defensive talent struggles to impose himself under unsympathetic management, culminating in hard-to-forgive, post-substitution shirt-flinging incident. Moves to Blackburn, instantly flowers into shoo-in England international and returns to Chelsea in glory to ‘bomb on’ down the left as no one in the club’s history had ‘bombed on’ before. And all this while becoming a noble figurehead in the struggle against numb-brained homophobia. In truth, someone who could irritate Robbie Fowler so thoroughly should probably be much further up this list.
41 Paul Canoville
1981-86, 103 total appearances, 15 goals
In April 1982, Canoville became the first black player to play for Chelsea's first team, during the period when knuckle-headed racism was at its ugliest. He was abused by his own club’s fans when made his debut as a substitute at Crystal Palace, and also when he warmed up at Stamford Bridge, and would later receive razor blades in the post from Chelsea fans. Many would have buckled and fled. Canoville didn’t and four years later he had his own song. Also here for services to literature: his autobiography ‘Black and Blue’ (2008) is a classic of the form.
40 Eric Parsons
1950-56, 117 total appearances, 42 goals
Nicknamed the Rabbit, the right winger was one of only two ever-presents in the 1955 championship-winning side, the other being Derek Saunders who played in midfield in what they weren’t quite calling in those days ‘the Makelele role’.
39 Michael Essien
2005-present, 162 total appearances, 17 goals
Can you imagine picking an all-time stongest Chelsea XI and not wanting to put Michael Essien in it? I can’t.
38 Peter Houseman
1962-75, 343 total appearances, 39 goals
The original ‘service provider’. The cup runs of 1969-70 and 1970-71 (FA Cup and Cup Winners’ Cup respectively) were studded all over with the winger’s vital contributions, both crosses and goals. Would have had a hat-trick of medals if Chelsea hadn’t muffed it up against Stoke in the 1972 League Cup final.
Times Archive, 1969: Houseman the quiet man causes a stir
37 Marvin Hinton
1963-76, 344 total appearances, 4 goals
Exemplary, hard-headed stopper, though, if I’m being perfectly honest, included here mostly in order to enable me to reproduce the story about how Tommy Docherty, then Chelsea the manager, gave him a love bite and said: ‘Explain that to your wife.’ Can’t imagine Carlo Ancelotti getting involved in that kind of man-management, but I suppose you never know.
36 Peter Sillett
1953-62, 288 total appearances, 34 goals
Right back and championship medal-winner in 1954-55, who scored the goal that effectively clinched the title – a penalty on Easter Saturday that defeated Wolves, Chelsea's closest challengers. Sir Stanley Matthews rated Sillett the best full back he ever played against. That’ll do for me.
35 Micky Droy
1970-85, 313 total appearances, 19 goals
Six feet four inches of hard-core centre back, who had an unsentimental way with a headed clearance and who, from 1971, gave 15 years of no-nonsense service to a mortifyingly declining side. Droy grew a full beard at one point and began to look like someone who might sit in a shack in a forest and get very angry about everything, but was, apparently, an extremely gentle person off the pitch. Smoked for England, according to Paul Canoville, who also wrote, ‘I’d never seen boots the size of Micky Droy’s. I’d seen 11s and 12s but these were huge. Nobody had feet like that. I kept thinking, who’s cleaning those damn things? They ought to get paid by the yard.’
34 Eddie McCreadie
1962-74, 410 total appearances, 5 goals
Not only was the Scottish left back a goalscoring member of the 1965 League Cup-winning side (and some rate the goal he scored in the home leg of the final against Leicester, the winner, involving a full-pelt tilt down the length of the pitch, the greatest goal ever seen at Stamford Bridge), and of the legendary 1970 FA Cup-winning side, he was also a poet, samples of whose work were reproduced in the programme for his testimonial. Want to hear a couple of lines? You’re going to anyway:
‘I’ve never felt so happy
And yet sad,
I love you today,
It might be cold tomorrow.’
From It Might Be Cold Tomorrow by Eddie McCreadie. And I’ve still got the programme, if you don’t believe me.
Times Archive, 1965: Chelsea again owe much to McCreadie
33 Roberto Di Matteo
1996-02, 175 total appearances, 26 goals
Would have formed an enduring part of the Chelsea story even without his 30-yard goal after 42 seconds in the 1997 FA Cup final against Middlesbrough. The class-drenched midfielder’s arrival gave the first exciting intimation that the legions involved in English football’s ‘foreign invasion’ weren’t merely going to be conscripted from the ranks of the superannuated and those seeking an easy pension top-up. (Di Matteo was an Italian international when he joined from Lazio. It was the first time that had happened.)
32 Ricardo Carvalho
2004-present, 181 total appearances, 10 goals
It’s almost heretical to mention this in certain company, but I sometimes wonder whether it isn’t the Portuguese half of Chelsea's present preferred centre-back pairing who is the key to everything that is solid about it.
31 Ken Shellito
1957-69, 123 total appearances, 2 goals
Tremendous, flair-injecting full-back, signed in 1957, who, according to Tommy Docherty, would have kept George Cohen out of the 1966 World Cup-winning England side if it hadn’t been for one of the tiresome injuries that narrowed his career. Sadly, another great Chelsea player who later made a mess of trying to manage the club. (See also John Hollins.)
30 Arjen Robben
2004-07, 106 total appearances, 19 goals
The Dutch crowd-pleaser is probably as technically dazzling as anyone who has ever worn a Chelsea shirt – when he wanted to be. Shame, then, about the tissue-paper ligaments, the niggles, and the alleged reluctance to play unless feeling like himself (as the advert for vitamin supplements has it). But, on a good day, he was what people enjoy calling ‘an out-and-out winger’ and he would have been much closer to the top of this list if he hadn’t been too often simply ‘out’.
29 Ruud Gullit
1995-98, 64 total appearances, 7 goals
A toss of the dreadlocks, a quick look up and a 45-yard crossfield pass to the feet of a travelling forward, followed by a noise never before heard from a crowd at Stamford Bridge – a kind of low, approving sigh of contentment. Even winding down towards retirement, the former World Player of the Year was still at least 27 times more comfortable around a football than pretty much everyone else in the league at that point. Eventually, as a manager, he was destined to reveal himself to be an insufferable egotist and lose all available plots. Happy days in the meantime, though.
28 Steve Clarke
1987-98, 421 total appearances, 10 goals
Trusty defender who seemed to have been around since the dawn of time and yet who (tricky one to pull off, this) actually got better and better with age. Graduated to become assistant manager and all-purpose reality-inducing mechanism, holding the dressing room together under a number of variously problematic managerial regimes, most notably that of Avram Grant.
27 Dan Petrescu
1995-00, 208 total appearances, 23 goals
Copiously gifted Romanian wing back, still hymned to this day. Indeed, not all that long ago, I saw Petrescu attempt to cross an airport departure lounge full of Chelsea fans and the scenes were reminiscent of Beatlemania, circa 1964, albeit without quite so much girly screaming.
26 Tommy Baldwin
1966-75, 239 total appearances, 92 goals
Also still hymned. ‘Oh his name is Tommy Baldwin, he’s the leader of our team ? ’ etc. Which isn’t completely accurate, of course, but some players are never forgotten. An invaluable foil for Peter Osgood, it was Baldwin who produced the definitive resume of the 1970 FA Cup Final against Leeds: ‘We kicked them and they kicked us.’
25 Gianluca Vialli
1996-00, 88 total appearances, 40 goals
The power, the shot, the shaven head, the V-neck sweaters, the smoking – what wasn’t to like? All together: ‘When the ball hits the back/of the Old Trafford net/that’s Vialli.’
24 Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink & 23 Eidur Gudjohnsen
2000-04, 177 total appearances, 87 goals
2000-06, 263 total appearances, 78 goals
Utterly lethal, turn-of-the-century double act who only had to look at each other to score goals. Both deeply loved, Hasselbaink in particular, who later returned with Middlesbrough, and scored. Cue warm applause from all sections. Which, let's be frank, doesn’t often happen when the opposition tucks one away at Stamford Bridge.
22 Pat Nevin
1983-88, 242 total appearances, 45 goals
Stepped dazzlingly into the vacancy for a slight Scottish-born winger, able to ‘go mazy’ at the first hint of an opportunity – a post left some time earlier by the retirement of Charlie Cooke. With an interest in indie music (and you were as likely to find a footballer with a passion for marine biology), and with a haircut and a charity shop-sourced overcoat to match, Nevin became one of a very small number of players to be handed the regal tribute of a two-page spread in NME. Heroically attempted to travel to home games on the tube until an encounter with a poorly adjusted Spurs fan convinced him that it might be wiser not to. Later co-authored an excellent book on the psychology of the footballer, In Ma Head, Son. One of a kind.
Times Archive, 1983: Nevin has hallmark of genius
21 Ray Wilkins
1973-79, 198 total appearances, 34 goals
Classic, poised and intelligent midfielder and also, quite patently, a lovely bloke. Enjoyed going sideways but there’s nothing in the rules that says you can’t. (See Claude Makelele.) Not only is Wilkins the only former Chelsea player to feature in a Tango ad, he is also one of only a very small number of Chelsea managers who can claim a 100 per cent record. (He was caretaker for one match in 2009, between Phil Scolari and Guus Hiddink, and crafted a victory.) As he would doubtless put it himself, ‘Super.’
Times Archive, 1976: Wilkins strikes twice for impressive Chelsea
20 Alan Hudson
1968-74 & 1983-84, 189 total appearances, 14 goals
A friend of mine attended Hudson’s England debut, against West Germany at Wembley in March 1975, having spent approximately 700 man-hours stencilling a bed sheet with the message ‘Good luck, Alan’. What a waste of time. EXCEPT - in a subsequent interview with Shoot! magazine, Hudson was asked about that big night in this phenomenally fluid playmaker’s frustratingly incomplete career, and he confessed that he had been nervous but that he saw a bedsheet bearing a message of goodwill and this helped him settle. So there you are. Proof that footballers are only human and that stencilled bedsheets change lives.
Times Archive, 1972: Two-year England ban for Hudson
19 Jimmy Greaves
1957-61, 169 total appearances, 132 goals
He scored goals, you know. Then he left for Italy to expand his cultural horizons and experience the unique challenges of life in another country. Or was it to fill his boots with foreign money? You the jury.
Times Archive, 1961: Chelsea ban Greaves over Milan move
18 Kerry Dixon
1983-92, 420 total appearances, 193 goals
He scored goals, as well. But when he left, it was to expand his cultural horizons and experience the unique challenges of life at Southampton. Talk about another country.
Times Archive, 1984: Dixon dismantles Manchester City
17 David Speedie
1982-87, 205 total appearances, 64 goals
Gnarly, pint-sized Scot who worked best in partnership with Dixon. Indeed, so often were the words Dixon and Speedie paired up during the 1980s that some observers who weren’t concentrating properly assumed they were one player with a double-barrelled name. It was easy to tell them apart, though. Dixon was tall and blond and drifting and had a bit of glamour about him. Speedie was? David Speedie.
Times Archive, 1984: Speedie punishes Liverpool
16 John Hollins
1963-75 & 1983-84, 592 total appearances 64 goals
Carried the candle for hard work in midfield under Tommy Docherty and Dave Sexton, but was also the scorer of mind-boggling goals. Made a big mistake when he graduated to manager (after the great John Neal grew unwell) and was, to everyone’s surprise, a bit rubbish.
Times Archive, 1981: Interview with John Hollins
15 Peter Bonetti
1959-79, 729 total appearances, 0 goals
The exquisitely agile goalkeeper of the 1960s and 70s (‘The Cat’ to his mates) was this author’s first football hero - and you never forget your first footballer. He was a pioneer among goalkeepers and today’s proponents pretty much owe to Bonetti’s influence a) coming out for crosses, b) bowling the ball out rather than punting it and c) wearing gloves. Rather spoiled things among the impartial with that, shall we say, somewhat flappy performance in goal for England against West Germany in the 1970 World Cup quarter-final, but it didn’t change anything from my point of view. Not a thing.
Times Archive, 1966: Bonetti not to blame for rout
14 Marcel Desailly
1998-04, 222 total appearances, 7 goals
Immense, French World Cup-winning centre back who taught John Terry pretty much everything he knows about positioning, playing the ball out of defence and taking no nonsense from upstart forwards. In other cultures, would have been worshipped as a god. Knew a bit of that in this culture, too.
13 Dennis Wise
1990-01, 445 total appearances, 76 goals
Apparently, some people out there find reasons to take exception to Dennis Wise. Can that be true? Chelsea fans can’t think of any. Not one. Sir Alex Ferguson reckoned Wise could start a fight in an empty house. And maybe he could. But the important thing was, it was always someone else’s house, never your own, and that made it perfectly acceptable. Reared in the academy of mayhem known, informally, as Wimbledon FC, ‘the Rat’ grew in stature from impish trouble-magnet to responsible trophy-lifting captain (and impish trouble-magnet) while at the same time evolving into (and this tends to get under-mentioned) a superb, quick-footed, far-seeing midfield player. Fact: Ken Bates’s wife cried when Wise left.
12 Charlie Cooke
1966-72 & 1974-78, 373 total appearances, 30 goals
Fetchingly moustachioed, preposterously entertaining winger, who was crowned ‘Wizard of the Dribble’ back in the days when being a wizard really meant something. ‘Lumos!’ my backside. What the kids of today need to realise is that Cooke made Harry Potter look like a lead-footed Muggle with a snapped wand. That’s just a fact.
Times Archive, 1974: Cooke has qualities Chelsea sorely need
11 Petr Cech
2004-present, 220 total appearances, 0 goals
Quite simply the best goalkeeper that Chelsea have ever had. And yes, before anyone calls me on this, it’s true that I never saw Willie ‘Fatty’ Foulke, in his 22-stone pomp, back in 1905. But I’d hazard that, in a keeper-to-keeper comparison, Cech would have the edge on him, technically speaking, and would certainly be able to get off his line quicker. In the 2004-05 championship-winning season under Jose Mourinho, the Czech international went 1,025 minutes without conceding a goal and was without peer in England. Possibly everywhere.
10 Willie Foulke
1905-06, 35 total appearances, 0 goals
Oh, all right then – let’s whack him in here, just in case. Once ate the entire team’s breakfast, apparently, and also is reported to have turned an opposing forward upside down and dragged his head through the mud. And if that kind of dedication to the game doesn’t get you into a list like this, there’s no justice.
9 Roy Bentley
1948-56, 367 total appearances, 150 goals
Centre forward in the 1954-55 Championship-winning side who joined Chelsea from Newcastle on medical advice, having been told that the gentler air of west London would better assist his recovery from a lung problem. People have routinely travelled to seek the healing effects of the Stamford Bridge atmosphere ever since. Bentley impressed himself indelibly on the minds of a far younger generation after the final home match of the 2008-09 season by cavorting on the pitch at half-time in a manner that would have exhausted a 24-year-old. Bentley is 85.
Times Archive, 1953: Bentley stars in five-goal victory
8 Claude Makelele
2003-08, 217 total appearances, 2 goals
This was Florentino Perez, the chairman of Real Madrid, when Makelele left for Chelsea in 2003: ‘We will not miss Makelele. His technique is average, he lacks the speed and skill to take the ball past opponents, and ninety per cent of his distribution either goes backwards or sideways. He wasn't a header of the ball and he rarely passed the ball more than three metres. Younger players will arrive who will cause Makelele to be forgotten.’ Six years, two championship-winning seasons and several other pieces of silverware later, and the entire game continues to remember the genius who knew the distinction of giving his name to an entire position on the pitch – ‘the Makelele role’. That simple stuff, eh, Florentino? a) it’s incredibly important and b) it’s not that simple, as it turns out.
7 George Hilsdon
1906-12, 164 total appearances, 107 goals
Signed on £4 a week in 1906, the second year of the club’s existence. Three years later, he had scored 76 goals in 99 appearances, including five on his debut (a 9-2 defeat of Glossop North End) and six in an FA Cup tie against Worksop Town. Check out, also, his international record: eight appearances for England, 14 goals. Little wonder he ended up uniquely commemorated at Stamford Bridge, in the form of a weather vane.
6 Ron Harris
1961-80, 795 total appearances, 14 goals
Hard as nails. If anything, slightly harder, actually. Born leader and brutally effective defensive fire-extinguisher - an important counterpoint to the club’s early-1970s Fancy Dan/ King’s Road/ Racquel-Welch-in-the -East-Stand image. Appeared 655 times, a figure enhanced by his reluctance to sit a match out for any injury that wasn’t actually life-threatening, and seemed to consider himself a one-man trial of the medical approach which says, ‘Just run it off, son.’ At the same time, Chopper himself was a big-time dealer in damage that couldn’t be run off. Ironic, that.
5 John Terry
1998-present, 405 total appearances, 35 goals
Not only is JT the most successful captain Chelsea have ever had, he is also the perfect embodiment of the fact that a player’s popularity increases in accordance with his willingness to get his head kicked off for the cause. A member of that probably terminally endangered species, the one-club player, he was said to have let down the fans by not denying straight away the possibility of a move to Manchester City when news of an approach made the papers this summer. But do you know one Chelsea supporter who, even in the absence of a public declaration, really thought he would leave, even for one second?
4 Bobby Tambling
1958-70, 370 total appearances, 202 goals
Ultra-sporting, hunch-shouldered Sixties goal machine. Took over from Jimmy Greaves, which might have seemed a bit daunting. Yet, despite the precedent (perhaps because of it), scored 202 goals in 370 games. Quite good going, that. Interestingly, he managed four goals in a match four times, which is more often than he managed three (three times). Hat-tricks, though: they’re so over-rated.
Times Archive, 1962: Tambling matches Greaves in scoring style
3 Peter Osgood
1964-74 & 1978-79, 380 total appearances, 150 goals
Big-sideburned goalscorer and populist, permanently stitched into the tapestry of Chelsea’s history, airborne, scoring with a diving header in the 1970 FA Cup Final replay. Made 635 appearances for Chelsea – and that was just as a half-time guest when his playing career was over. We never tired of waving at him, though.
Times Archive, 1966: Fame rests lightly on talented Osgood
2 Frank Lampard
2001-present, 426 total appearances, 130 goals
There is no argument here: Lampard is quite straightforwardly the best midfield player in England at the time of writing, and has been since 2003. It also goes without saying that he merits a place near the top of any list of the most influential players in Chelsea’s history. He has power, he has vision, he all but guarantees 20 goals per season and (here’s the critical thing) he is gifted with a copper constitution which means that he is always there. Steven Gerrard would be nearly this good if only he didn't snap something every time he sneezed.
1 Gareth Hall
Just kidding.
1 Gianfranco Zola
1996-03, 312 total appearances, 80 goals
Small but perfectly formed. Clearly a nice man, too. Many nurture a fond dream of Zola, having ironed out the lumps in his coaching style at West Ham, returning in glory to manage Chelsea through a sustained period of unprecedented success during which we are all hugging each other and laughing nearly all the time. But given that 99.9 per cent of managerial careers end in disappointment (the other 0.1 per cent being Ray Wilkins – see above), perhaps it would be better if he didn’t and we were just left with the memories. Which are great, by the way.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/chelsea/article6796018.ece
Three ended up at QPR: John Spencer, Ray Wilkins and John Hollins.
The Times - The Top 50 Chelsea Players.
No 50: Winston Bogarde
Image :1 of 47
Giles Smith
50 Winston Bogarde
2000-04, 12 total appearances, 0 goals
A controversial selection for this list, maybe. But read the stats: four years with Chelsea from 2000, four first-team starts, £8,240,000 earned at the totally cash-tastic rate of £686,666 per game. Doesn’t matter how you look at it, the stone-faced Dutchman was a wage-bill legend, not to mention a small, self-contained essay on the state of football at the start of the 21st century. What price a retrospective testimonial? The fans never got the chance to say goodbye.
49 Stan Willemse
1949-56, 221 total appearances, 2 goals
Left back in the Chelsea side that won the first division title in 1954-55. Didn’t hang around to celebrate on the day because he wanted to get back to Brighton where his greyhounds were due to run. It’s all about priorities.
48 Albert Ferrer
1998-03, 113 total appearances, 1 goal
Sharp and underrated right back who was a key player in the 1998-99 side that qualified for the Champions League for the first time. In the old days, one reflected, football had been full of players called Albert. Come the turn of the century, though, there were almost none. And the ones there were came from Spain.
47 John Spencer
1992-96, 137 total appearances, 43 goals
The gobby, pocket-sized Scot seizes an honorary place here, not because (according to Rick Glanvill, the distinguished Chelsea historian) he shaved his head as a direct consequence of reading an Andy McNab book (though he gets points for that, obviously), but for having scored the greatest European goal in Chelsea’s history – against FK Austria in the Cup Winners' Cup in November 1994, beating the goalkeeper after an 80-yard sprint with the ball, which even now can raise sweat on the palms of anyone watching it.
46 Ian Britton
1971-82, 289 total appearances, 34 goals
In here in recognition of ten years' loyal service between 1972 and 1982, but, more particularly, I’ll admit, on account of the hair. How did he get it to stand so tall and so still? And how was he not forever losing things in the ear flaps? Like car keys, for instance. Or even his car. Hairdressers still marvel over this.
45 Chris Garland
1971-75, 114 total appearances, 31 goals
Scored some good goals in the early Seventies, but I’m afraid he’s in here for reasons relating to hair, too. So much of it in one place! And when he grew a moustache, his head appeared to have been hijacked by hair. Extraordinary.
44 George Weah
2000, 15 total appearances, 5 goals
If we’re going to be literal about it, the Liberian goalscorer falls into the category of one of the greatest players who ever played for Chelsea rather than one of the greatest ever Chelsea players. (You’d post Tommy Lawton and Len Goulden on the same list, as well as Didier Deschamps, Brian Laudrup and Hernan Crespo – supremely accomplished, but we probably have to admit that they had done all their accomplishing before they arrived at Chelsea.) Still, the AC Milan hero’s Chelsea debut, in January 2000, when, merely a couple of hours after flying in to London, he came on as a sub and headed the winner against Spurs, was a carnival occasion for everyone who witnessed it. Incidentally, Weah is also the only former Chelsea player to run for president in his native country (in 2005, unsuccessfully, as it turned out), though some of us have been on at Eidur Gudjohnsen to have a crack.
43 Vivian Woodward
1909-15, 116 total appearances, 34 goals
When Woodward joined Chelsea at inside right in 1909, the club suddenly had three England internationals at the heart of its attack, the other two being Jimmy Windridge and George Hilsdon. Glory days, then – apart from the matter of the World War looming on the horizon, obviously.
Times Archive, 1954: Vivian Woodward, Times Obituary
42 Graeme Le Saux
1987-93 & 1997-03, 312 total appearances, 16 goals
One of the greatest ‘prodigal son’ tales ever told, west of the bible. Young, raw, defensive talent struggles to impose himself under unsympathetic management, culminating in hard-to-forgive, post-substitution shirt-flinging incident. Moves to Blackburn, instantly flowers into shoo-in England international and returns to Chelsea in glory to ‘bomb on’ down the left as no one in the club’s history had ‘bombed on’ before. And all this while becoming a noble figurehead in the struggle against numb-brained homophobia. In truth, someone who could irritate Robbie Fowler so thoroughly should probably be much further up this list.
41 Paul Canoville
1981-86, 103 total appearances, 15 goals
In April 1982, Canoville became the first black player to play for Chelsea's first team, during the period when knuckle-headed racism was at its ugliest. He was abused by his own club’s fans when made his debut as a substitute at Crystal Palace, and also when he warmed up at Stamford Bridge, and would later receive razor blades in the post from Chelsea fans. Many would have buckled and fled. Canoville didn’t and four years later he had his own song. Also here for services to literature: his autobiography ‘Black and Blue’ (2008) is a classic of the form.
40 Eric Parsons
1950-56, 117 total appearances, 42 goals
Nicknamed the Rabbit, the right winger was one of only two ever-presents in the 1955 championship-winning side, the other being Derek Saunders who played in midfield in what they weren’t quite calling in those days ‘the Makelele role’.
39 Michael Essien
2005-present, 162 total appearances, 17 goals
Can you imagine picking an all-time stongest Chelsea XI and not wanting to put Michael Essien in it? I can’t.
38 Peter Houseman
1962-75, 343 total appearances, 39 goals
The original ‘service provider’. The cup runs of 1969-70 and 1970-71 (FA Cup and Cup Winners’ Cup respectively) were studded all over with the winger’s vital contributions, both crosses and goals. Would have had a hat-trick of medals if Chelsea hadn’t muffed it up against Stoke in the 1972 League Cup final.
Times Archive, 1969: Houseman the quiet man causes a stir
37 Marvin Hinton
1963-76, 344 total appearances, 4 goals
Exemplary, hard-headed stopper, though, if I’m being perfectly honest, included here mostly in order to enable me to reproduce the story about how Tommy Docherty, then Chelsea the manager, gave him a love bite and said: ‘Explain that to your wife.’ Can’t imagine Carlo Ancelotti getting involved in that kind of man-management, but I suppose you never know.
36 Peter Sillett
1953-62, 288 total appearances, 34 goals
Right back and championship medal-winner in 1954-55, who scored the goal that effectively clinched the title – a penalty on Easter Saturday that defeated Wolves, Chelsea's closest challengers. Sir Stanley Matthews rated Sillett the best full back he ever played against. That’ll do for me.
35 Micky Droy
1970-85, 313 total appearances, 19 goals
Six feet four inches of hard-core centre back, who had an unsentimental way with a headed clearance and who, from 1971, gave 15 years of no-nonsense service to a mortifyingly declining side. Droy grew a full beard at one point and began to look like someone who might sit in a shack in a forest and get very angry about everything, but was, apparently, an extremely gentle person off the pitch. Smoked for England, according to Paul Canoville, who also wrote, ‘I’d never seen boots the size of Micky Droy’s. I’d seen 11s and 12s but these were huge. Nobody had feet like that. I kept thinking, who’s cleaning those damn things? They ought to get paid by the yard.’
34 Eddie McCreadie
1962-74, 410 total appearances, 5 goals
Not only was the Scottish left back a goalscoring member of the 1965 League Cup-winning side (and some rate the goal he scored in the home leg of the final against Leicester, the winner, involving a full-pelt tilt down the length of the pitch, the greatest goal ever seen at Stamford Bridge), and of the legendary 1970 FA Cup-winning side, he was also a poet, samples of whose work were reproduced in the programme for his testimonial. Want to hear a couple of lines? You’re going to anyway:
‘I’ve never felt so happy
And yet sad,
I love you today,
It might be cold tomorrow.’
From It Might Be Cold Tomorrow by Eddie McCreadie. And I’ve still got the programme, if you don’t believe me.
Times Archive, 1965: Chelsea again owe much to McCreadie
33 Roberto Di Matteo
1996-02, 175 total appearances, 26 goals
Would have formed an enduring part of the Chelsea story even without his 30-yard goal after 42 seconds in the 1997 FA Cup final against Middlesbrough. The class-drenched midfielder’s arrival gave the first exciting intimation that the legions involved in English football’s ‘foreign invasion’ weren’t merely going to be conscripted from the ranks of the superannuated and those seeking an easy pension top-up. (Di Matteo was an Italian international when he joined from Lazio. It was the first time that had happened.)
32 Ricardo Carvalho
2004-present, 181 total appearances, 10 goals
It’s almost heretical to mention this in certain company, but I sometimes wonder whether it isn’t the Portuguese half of Chelsea's present preferred centre-back pairing who is the key to everything that is solid about it.
31 Ken Shellito
1957-69, 123 total appearances, 2 goals
Tremendous, flair-injecting full-back, signed in 1957, who, according to Tommy Docherty, would have kept George Cohen out of the 1966 World Cup-winning England side if it hadn’t been for one of the tiresome injuries that narrowed his career. Sadly, another great Chelsea player who later made a mess of trying to manage the club. (See also John Hollins.)
30 Arjen Robben
2004-07, 106 total appearances, 19 goals
The Dutch crowd-pleaser is probably as technically dazzling as anyone who has ever worn a Chelsea shirt – when he wanted to be. Shame, then, about the tissue-paper ligaments, the niggles, and the alleged reluctance to play unless feeling like himself (as the advert for vitamin supplements has it). But, on a good day, he was what people enjoy calling ‘an out-and-out winger’ and he would have been much closer to the top of this list if he hadn’t been too often simply ‘out’.
29 Ruud Gullit
1995-98, 64 total appearances, 7 goals
A toss of the dreadlocks, a quick look up and a 45-yard crossfield pass to the feet of a travelling forward, followed by a noise never before heard from a crowd at Stamford Bridge – a kind of low, approving sigh of contentment. Even winding down towards retirement, the former World Player of the Year was still at least 27 times more comfortable around a football than pretty much everyone else in the league at that point. Eventually, as a manager, he was destined to reveal himself to be an insufferable egotist and lose all available plots. Happy days in the meantime, though.
28 Steve Clarke
1987-98, 421 total appearances, 10 goals
Trusty defender who seemed to have been around since the dawn of time and yet who (tricky one to pull off, this) actually got better and better with age. Graduated to become assistant manager and all-purpose reality-inducing mechanism, holding the dressing room together under a number of variously problematic managerial regimes, most notably that of Avram Grant.
27 Dan Petrescu
1995-00, 208 total appearances, 23 goals
Copiously gifted Romanian wing back, still hymned to this day. Indeed, not all that long ago, I saw Petrescu attempt to cross an airport departure lounge full of Chelsea fans and the scenes were reminiscent of Beatlemania, circa 1964, albeit without quite so much girly screaming.
26 Tommy Baldwin
1966-75, 239 total appearances, 92 goals
Also still hymned. ‘Oh his name is Tommy Baldwin, he’s the leader of our team ? ’ etc. Which isn’t completely accurate, of course, but some players are never forgotten. An invaluable foil for Peter Osgood, it was Baldwin who produced the definitive resume of the 1970 FA Cup Final against Leeds: ‘We kicked them and they kicked us.’
25 Gianluca Vialli
1996-00, 88 total appearances, 40 goals
The power, the shot, the shaven head, the V-neck sweaters, the smoking – what wasn’t to like? All together: ‘When the ball hits the back/of the Old Trafford net/that’s Vialli.’
24 Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink & 23 Eidur Gudjohnsen
2000-04, 177 total appearances, 87 goals
2000-06, 263 total appearances, 78 goals
Utterly lethal, turn-of-the-century double act who only had to look at each other to score goals. Both deeply loved, Hasselbaink in particular, who later returned with Middlesbrough, and scored. Cue warm applause from all sections. Which, let's be frank, doesn’t often happen when the opposition tucks one away at Stamford Bridge.
22 Pat Nevin
1983-88, 242 total appearances, 45 goals
Stepped dazzlingly into the vacancy for a slight Scottish-born winger, able to ‘go mazy’ at the first hint of an opportunity – a post left some time earlier by the retirement of Charlie Cooke. With an interest in indie music (and you were as likely to find a footballer with a passion for marine biology), and with a haircut and a charity shop-sourced overcoat to match, Nevin became one of a very small number of players to be handed the regal tribute of a two-page spread in NME. Heroically attempted to travel to home games on the tube until an encounter with a poorly adjusted Spurs fan convinced him that it might be wiser not to. Later co-authored an excellent book on the psychology of the footballer, In Ma Head, Son. One of a kind.
Times Archive, 1983: Nevin has hallmark of genius
21 Ray Wilkins
1973-79, 198 total appearances, 34 goals
Classic, poised and intelligent midfielder and also, quite patently, a lovely bloke. Enjoyed going sideways but there’s nothing in the rules that says you can’t. (See Claude Makelele.) Not only is Wilkins the only former Chelsea player to feature in a Tango ad, he is also one of only a very small number of Chelsea managers who can claim a 100 per cent record. (He was caretaker for one match in 2009, between Phil Scolari and Guus Hiddink, and crafted a victory.) As he would doubtless put it himself, ‘Super.’
Times Archive, 1976: Wilkins strikes twice for impressive Chelsea
20 Alan Hudson
1968-74 & 1983-84, 189 total appearances, 14 goals
A friend of mine attended Hudson’s England debut, against West Germany at Wembley in March 1975, having spent approximately 700 man-hours stencilling a bed sheet with the message ‘Good luck, Alan’. What a waste of time. EXCEPT - in a subsequent interview with Shoot! magazine, Hudson was asked about that big night in this phenomenally fluid playmaker’s frustratingly incomplete career, and he confessed that he had been nervous but that he saw a bedsheet bearing a message of goodwill and this helped him settle. So there you are. Proof that footballers are only human and that stencilled bedsheets change lives.
Times Archive, 1972: Two-year England ban for Hudson
19 Jimmy Greaves
1957-61, 169 total appearances, 132 goals
He scored goals, you know. Then he left for Italy to expand his cultural horizons and experience the unique challenges of life in another country. Or was it to fill his boots with foreign money? You the jury.
Times Archive, 1961: Chelsea ban Greaves over Milan move
18 Kerry Dixon
1983-92, 420 total appearances, 193 goals
He scored goals, as well. But when he left, it was to expand his cultural horizons and experience the unique challenges of life at Southampton. Talk about another country.
Times Archive, 1984: Dixon dismantles Manchester City
17 David Speedie
1982-87, 205 total appearances, 64 goals
Gnarly, pint-sized Scot who worked best in partnership with Dixon. Indeed, so often were the words Dixon and Speedie paired up during the 1980s that some observers who weren’t concentrating properly assumed they were one player with a double-barrelled name. It was easy to tell them apart, though. Dixon was tall and blond and drifting and had a bit of glamour about him. Speedie was? David Speedie.
Times Archive, 1984: Speedie punishes Liverpool
16 John Hollins
1963-75 & 1983-84, 592 total appearances 64 goals
Carried the candle for hard work in midfield under Tommy Docherty and Dave Sexton, but was also the scorer of mind-boggling goals. Made a big mistake when he graduated to manager (after the great John Neal grew unwell) and was, to everyone’s surprise, a bit rubbish.
Times Archive, 1981: Interview with John Hollins
15 Peter Bonetti
1959-79, 729 total appearances, 0 goals
The exquisitely agile goalkeeper of the 1960s and 70s (‘The Cat’ to his mates) was this author’s first football hero - and you never forget your first footballer. He was a pioneer among goalkeepers and today’s proponents pretty much owe to Bonetti’s influence a) coming out for crosses, b) bowling the ball out rather than punting it and c) wearing gloves. Rather spoiled things among the impartial with that, shall we say, somewhat flappy performance in goal for England against West Germany in the 1970 World Cup quarter-final, but it didn’t change anything from my point of view. Not a thing.
Times Archive, 1966: Bonetti not to blame for rout
14 Marcel Desailly
1998-04, 222 total appearances, 7 goals
Immense, French World Cup-winning centre back who taught John Terry pretty much everything he knows about positioning, playing the ball out of defence and taking no nonsense from upstart forwards. In other cultures, would have been worshipped as a god. Knew a bit of that in this culture, too.
13 Dennis Wise
1990-01, 445 total appearances, 76 goals
Apparently, some people out there find reasons to take exception to Dennis Wise. Can that be true? Chelsea fans can’t think of any. Not one. Sir Alex Ferguson reckoned Wise could start a fight in an empty house. And maybe he could. But the important thing was, it was always someone else’s house, never your own, and that made it perfectly acceptable. Reared in the academy of mayhem known, informally, as Wimbledon FC, ‘the Rat’ grew in stature from impish trouble-magnet to responsible trophy-lifting captain (and impish trouble-magnet) while at the same time evolving into (and this tends to get under-mentioned) a superb, quick-footed, far-seeing midfield player. Fact: Ken Bates’s wife cried when Wise left.
12 Charlie Cooke
1966-72 & 1974-78, 373 total appearances, 30 goals
Fetchingly moustachioed, preposterously entertaining winger, who was crowned ‘Wizard of the Dribble’ back in the days when being a wizard really meant something. ‘Lumos!’ my backside. What the kids of today need to realise is that Cooke made Harry Potter look like a lead-footed Muggle with a snapped wand. That’s just a fact.
Times Archive, 1974: Cooke has qualities Chelsea sorely need
11 Petr Cech
2004-present, 220 total appearances, 0 goals
Quite simply the best goalkeeper that Chelsea have ever had. And yes, before anyone calls me on this, it’s true that I never saw Willie ‘Fatty’ Foulke, in his 22-stone pomp, back in 1905. But I’d hazard that, in a keeper-to-keeper comparison, Cech would have the edge on him, technically speaking, and would certainly be able to get off his line quicker. In the 2004-05 championship-winning season under Jose Mourinho, the Czech international went 1,025 minutes without conceding a goal and was without peer in England. Possibly everywhere.
10 Willie Foulke
1905-06, 35 total appearances, 0 goals
Oh, all right then – let’s whack him in here, just in case. Once ate the entire team’s breakfast, apparently, and also is reported to have turned an opposing forward upside down and dragged his head through the mud. And if that kind of dedication to the game doesn’t get you into a list like this, there’s no justice.
9 Roy Bentley
1948-56, 367 total appearances, 150 goals
Centre forward in the 1954-55 Championship-winning side who joined Chelsea from Newcastle on medical advice, having been told that the gentler air of west London would better assist his recovery from a lung problem. People have routinely travelled to seek the healing effects of the Stamford Bridge atmosphere ever since. Bentley impressed himself indelibly on the minds of a far younger generation after the final home match of the 2008-09 season by cavorting on the pitch at half-time in a manner that would have exhausted a 24-year-old. Bentley is 85.
Times Archive, 1953: Bentley stars in five-goal victory
8 Claude Makelele
2003-08, 217 total appearances, 2 goals
This was Florentino Perez, the chairman of Real Madrid, when Makelele left for Chelsea in 2003: ‘We will not miss Makelele. His technique is average, he lacks the speed and skill to take the ball past opponents, and ninety per cent of his distribution either goes backwards or sideways. He wasn't a header of the ball and he rarely passed the ball more than three metres. Younger players will arrive who will cause Makelele to be forgotten.’ Six years, two championship-winning seasons and several other pieces of silverware later, and the entire game continues to remember the genius who knew the distinction of giving his name to an entire position on the pitch – ‘the Makelele role’. That simple stuff, eh, Florentino? a) it’s incredibly important and b) it’s not that simple, as it turns out.
7 George Hilsdon
1906-12, 164 total appearances, 107 goals
Signed on £4 a week in 1906, the second year of the club’s existence. Three years later, he had scored 76 goals in 99 appearances, including five on his debut (a 9-2 defeat of Glossop North End) and six in an FA Cup tie against Worksop Town. Check out, also, his international record: eight appearances for England, 14 goals. Little wonder he ended up uniquely commemorated at Stamford Bridge, in the form of a weather vane.
6 Ron Harris
1961-80, 795 total appearances, 14 goals
Hard as nails. If anything, slightly harder, actually. Born leader and brutally effective defensive fire-extinguisher - an important counterpoint to the club’s early-1970s Fancy Dan/ King’s Road/ Racquel-Welch-in-the -East-Stand image. Appeared 655 times, a figure enhanced by his reluctance to sit a match out for any injury that wasn’t actually life-threatening, and seemed to consider himself a one-man trial of the medical approach which says, ‘Just run it off, son.’ At the same time, Chopper himself was a big-time dealer in damage that couldn’t be run off. Ironic, that.
5 John Terry
1998-present, 405 total appearances, 35 goals
Not only is JT the most successful captain Chelsea have ever had, he is also the perfect embodiment of the fact that a player’s popularity increases in accordance with his willingness to get his head kicked off for the cause. A member of that probably terminally endangered species, the one-club player, he was said to have let down the fans by not denying straight away the possibility of a move to Manchester City when news of an approach made the papers this summer. But do you know one Chelsea supporter who, even in the absence of a public declaration, really thought he would leave, even for one second?
4 Bobby Tambling
1958-70, 370 total appearances, 202 goals
Ultra-sporting, hunch-shouldered Sixties goal machine. Took over from Jimmy Greaves, which might have seemed a bit daunting. Yet, despite the precedent (perhaps because of it), scored 202 goals in 370 games. Quite good going, that. Interestingly, he managed four goals in a match four times, which is more often than he managed three (three times). Hat-tricks, though: they’re so over-rated.
Times Archive, 1962: Tambling matches Greaves in scoring style
3 Peter Osgood
1964-74 & 1978-79, 380 total appearances, 150 goals
Big-sideburned goalscorer and populist, permanently stitched into the tapestry of Chelsea’s history, airborne, scoring with a diving header in the 1970 FA Cup Final replay. Made 635 appearances for Chelsea – and that was just as a half-time guest when his playing career was over. We never tired of waving at him, though.
Times Archive, 1966: Fame rests lightly on talented Osgood
2 Frank Lampard
2001-present, 426 total appearances, 130 goals
There is no argument here: Lampard is quite straightforwardly the best midfield player in England at the time of writing, and has been since 2003. It also goes without saying that he merits a place near the top of any list of the most influential players in Chelsea’s history. He has power, he has vision, he all but guarantees 20 goals per season and (here’s the critical thing) he is gifted with a copper constitution which means that he is always there. Steven Gerrard would be nearly this good if only he didn't snap something every time he sneezed.
1 Gareth Hall
Just kidding.
1 Gianfranco Zola
1996-03, 312 total appearances, 80 goals
Small but perfectly formed. Clearly a nice man, too. Many nurture a fond dream of Zola, having ironed out the lumps in his coaching style at West Ham, returning in glory to manage Chelsea through a sustained period of unprecedented success during which we are all hugging each other and laughing nearly all the time. But given that 99.9 per cent of managerial careers end in disappointment (the other 0.1 per cent being Ray Wilkins – see above), perhaps it would be better if he didn’t and we were just left with the memories. Which are great, by the way.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/chelsea/article6796018.ece