Chelsea on Video: 1987/88 Highlights

Chelsea FC Highlights 1987-88

So, who would want the season review video from the year in which you got relegated?

Erm, Chelsea fans apparently.

Clearly the previous year’s effort had been enough of a success to warrant interest in a second one, it’s just unfortunate timing.

Gone are the awkward links, and we have a Colin Benson on commentary. He’s not a particularly great commentator. He can just about sum up whats happening but he doesn’t enthuse like Martin Tyler, Jon Motson or Brian Moore could.

There is no messing about on this video. The intro is the CFC badge layered over footage of Chelsea’s game against Portsmouth with text appearing to tell us this is ‘Chelsea FC Highlights 1987/88’. A quick BBC Micro produced title screen telling us the first game is ‘Chelsea FC vs Sheffield Wednesday’ and we are straight into the action.

And I’m pleased to say, the production values are greatly improved on last year. It’s not great or anything, it’s still all on one camera but it’s at least watchable. You won’t burn your retina’s out. And it does have away games now. Not all the away games but some.

And it’s not just the goals that are shown, we get a lot of the chances and saves too.

The lack of links actually works against the video as throughout you wouldn’t necessarily know Chelsea were in a big relegation battle. But then, this isn’t a season review, this is a ‘highlight’s video. A highlight apparently being a 4-0 loss away to Swindon Town in the Full Members Cup.

Gordon Durie volleys just over against Nottingham Forest

It’s hard to say what exactly went wrong for Chelsea this year. Chelsea actually started the season pretty well, winning 8 of their first 14 league games. Gordon Durie and Kerry Dixon were on fire up front and Pat Nevin was showing himself to be the wizard of dribble. The away form was poor but Chelsea were doing ok in the first part of the season.

So, what went wrong? How about that after 31^st October, Chelsea only won one more league game all season. Losing goalkeeper Eddie Niedzwiecki was obviously a blow but having a gash defence even more so. Manager John Hollins was replaced by Bobby Campbell but too late to stop the rot.

A 1-1 draw with Charlton Athletic on the final day meant it would be play-offs for Chelsea. Play-offs younger readers may ask? Yeah, this was the early days of the play-offs and back then were contested by the teams finishing 4^th-6^th in the old Division Two and the team finishing 18^th in Division One (Division One was 21 teams that year). That team was Chelsea.

Durie gives the Blues some hope vs 'Boro

All the play-off action is on the video, Chelsea started the play-offs quite comfortably with a 6-1 aggregate win over Blackburn Rovers. The ‘final’ would be against Middlesbrough. Middlesbrough won the first leg 2-0 at Ayresome Park (a shot of two ‘Boro fans dancing on top of the stand brings out the Alan Partridge in me) but Chelsea could only win 1-0 at Stamford Bridge. Benson quickly mentions Middlesbrough are promoted and Chelsea are relegated and we are out of here faster than a nun at a strip club. This, need I remind you, was a ‘highlight’. No mention of the ugly hooliganism that followed.

Why was the video released? I can only imagine the commercial team had already dedicated to the project long before the end of the season and didn’t want all that work to go to waste.

If you must watch this video, only watch the first 30 minutes. It’s only 90 minutes of misery after that.

Watch here:

Chelsea on Video: 1986/87 Season Review

Who doesn’t love a good season review video?

Unless it’s a season you got relegated in, why wouldn’t you want to relive all the games and goals of the previous season? Recapture some of that excitement you felt first time around. Notice some things you didn’t see before. Frankly, they are great.

Chelsea first tried it out in 1987 and…yeah, it kind of shows.

Opening on an image on the old CFC badge with the lion that looked a bit too close to Millwall for some fans liking on the East Stand, the camera slowly zooms out and our host Patrick O’Brien walks into shot. He looks a bit like snooker player Willie Thorne and is just as comfortable in front of the camera as Thorne would be taking on Stephen Hendry.

Patrick tells us this is the ‘first attempt’ to put together ‘a yearbook on cassette.’ I’m not sure if he means first anywhere or just at Chelsea. He says the video will show us the good action ‘as well as some of the bad action’, so at least he’s giving us some warning.

Everything here is decidedly amateur. When the camera zooms out you can hear the hand turning the lens. O’Brien is clearly reading from a script which he stumbles through with a lot of ‘ums’ and ‘ars’. And I actually kind of love him for it. You just wouldn’t get that on the modern Chelsea DVD’s, usually narrated by the uber professional Jon Champion.

Kerry Dixon heads in against Luton Town

He does a bit of a recap of where Chelsea are from last season and then its off to the first game against Luton Town. Actually, the Luton game was Chelsea’s fifth game of the season but this video doesn’t have action from any away games and Chelsea hadn’t scored in their other home matches, so the game in which Chelsea did get one was a good place to start with a nice header from Kerry Dixon. Shame it was in a 3-1 defeat.

1986-87 was the season Chelsea didn’t have a kit manufacturer and chose to make their own, the Chelsea Collection. A blue shirt with a long white strip down the arms, as worn by such illuminaries such as Dixon, Gordon Durie, Pat Nevin, Mickey Hazard and er, John McNaught. Not a bad kit though it does look more grey-green on the video than blue at times on the video.

The highlights take a break for a talking head from chairman Ken Bates. He outlines his aims for the season were to ‘challenge for the title and all three cup competitions’. Say what you like about Batesy but you can’t say he wasn’t ambitious. And three cup competitions you may ask? Surely you can’t have forgotten the highly prestigious and sought after Full Members (later Zenith Data Systems) Cup, of which Chelsea were the envied holders? A trophy so vaunted Chelsea wouldn’t even dare include it in their official team photo for the season.

Chelsea beating Arsenal 1-0

The lack of away games on the tape means O’Brien has to fill in the blanks between matches and we don’t get to see wins at White Hart Lane or Old Trafford but at least we get to see the 2-6 thumping from Nottingham Forest. I believe O’Brien does all the commentary as well but I can’t confirm it. Also, no replays on any of the goals. Everything is clearly filmed on one camera anyway, so it’s not a big loss.

A combination of the cheap equipment and probable tape degradation can make things difficult to watch at times. This is perfectly illustrated in a game against Manchester United when O’Brien tells us if we were to watch in slow motion we would see a United shot had crossed the line. Sorry mate, all I can see is bright contrast in my face.

Clear as day

Watching this though, I am struck by just how different Stamford Bridge looked back in the eighties. No doubt about it, it was a crumbling wreck with cars parked round the pitch and away fans crammed into a pen on the North Stand (Bates farming instincts coming out).

1986/87 was not a good season for Chelsea who struggled to 14^th in the table, having been sixth the previous year. When the tape finishes with the goals, it goes to twenty minutes of interviews with Ken Bates and manager John Hollins.

The Bates interview is interesting as he outlines his ambitions for the team, his transfer policy, disdain for the press and Save the Bridge campaign. Many younger fans may not be aware of how close Chelsea had been to going out of business and Stamford Bridge being sold off. Bates eventually saved the club and secured the ground for the fans after years of struggle.

Season videos were clearly a work in progress for Chelsea. I don’t know how many other teams were producing season videos at the time but I have found the Tottenham Hotspur video from the same year. It still only has the home matches but in terms of production is way ahead of Chelsea’s effort. And they had John bloody Motson narrating theirs. Lessons will be learned for the future.

Watch it here: