by Chris Tobin

The support of your football team and indeed your club is for most, a rite of passage, which will comprise an emotional rollercoaster, that will eventually lead to a point when nothing will, or can replace the feeling of belonging that we get from the endorsement of those around us. They are our tribe, our family, our team, engrossed where through such following, our lives are in some way authenticated and we are indeed alive – I am football fan.

What am I prepared to accept of my team, my club? At what point do I turn my back and disassociate my devotion and adoration for my team? Well I am not sure I have the answer to such a question, having never found myself at such a point where I have had to question such sanity in the belief I hold in the club I follow.

I often wonder what it must be like for Chelsea fans or supporters; what their acceptance levels have become, how they would judge their own attempts at being a football supporter. It’s quite the conundrum; mercenary fans being purchased with success, having become voiceless, instantly recognisable by the way they hold a contemptuous attitude in pursuit of supporting their club, aided by a media which refuses to fully hold them accountable, sitting back as Chelsea Football Club catapults both itself and its supporters toward an horrific parody of its malignant self – Horrid to its core.

With an owner who has a motto of “My way or the highway” which is reinforced by supporters less than intent on asking the question “whose club is this?”. It has become a club without any soul, with its integrity tested with a monotonous regularity, its failing exposed for all to see. Chelsea have allowed the club to be strangled by Mr Abramovich  without so much as a squeal from Stamford Bridge as the Shed End shuts its eyes and ears for a moment of success. Owning a football club when in possession of a wheelbarrow full of coinage, does not have to be managed in such an indignant and clearly dictatorial governorship. The fans support their club in a similar manner to which the owner runs it – with contempt for all.

On the day that your new manager – a man employed by your owner – begins his first game, like the classy supporters you have become, you decide to ask, in the guise of song, for him to “F**k off as he is not welcome here”- seriously people are you listening to yourselves? If indeed you are so unhappy, then why are you not questioning your owner? Supporters should not be consumed or acquired by success alone, allowing themselves to be pimped by magnificently rich owners, taking selling-out to a whole new level. You don’t support your team, players or managers, you have all become a vehicle for Abramovic. You both lack any dignity and in history to come your successes will be lacking any real provenance.

Many questions can be asked of Chelsea & the way it is run – A captain who was not only accused of having a relationship with a teammates partner, but also guilty of calling a fellow professional “a f***ing black c**t” hero worshipped without compunction from supporters – This does not happen in the real world, only in the football arena, where social blindness takes place, whilst the hawking of your soul and compassion are by-products of you prostituting all self-respect.

Chelsea supporters like no other, do not support a club they support the owner. As Rafa would say FACT!!