FtF goes to Stamford Bridge

Paul Konchesky's family, autograph hunting, over zealous policing, falling over, losing a scarf and meeting Lawrie...it was certainly a day to remember.

Our annual pilgrimage to Stamford Bridge and what an eventful day! We arrived an hour before kick-off, starving hungry but looking forward to visiting the fish & chip outlet that dispenses good food, albeit at a healthy premium. But where was it? Refurbishments had taken place, we were told by a Steward, but they hadn't got round to reinstalling the chippie. For a club owned by a multi-billionaire I found this some what surprising.

After tracking down a food van down the road we returned to see Paul Konchesky's family - it looked like his two young sons (one had Daddy on the back of his shirt and the other Konch) with his mum and dad - having what can only be described as a heated debate with the Stewards. I presume this was to do with ticket allocation as the end result was they were split up with one in the upper tier and one in the lower.

Our seats were in the upper tier in the corner - right next to the police who were there in their droves - so we had a cracking view. The atmosphere was terrific - in fact, my voice was hoarse by half time with all the singing. A cracking point earned, even though we were left with the feeling of 'what might have been' as we left the ground.

As we made our way down the road we suddenly remembered in our jubilation at the end that we'd left a bag behind with a scarf that's got sentimental value to us so it was back to the stadium which, by this time, was locked up. After begging a Steward for help, we were allowed in to retrieve the bag, so our grateful thanks to him for that. It restores your faith when you meet someone who is actually willing to go out of their way to help rather than the Neanderthals that are usually present in their orange bibs.

As we were leaving for the second time we saw the Fulham coach arrive to pick up the lads so we decided to have a wander down. Despite me slipping over in front of everybody - very embarrassing and not my finest hour! - we arrived in time to get some autographs. Felt a bit of an idiot queuing up behind a load of children but needs must. Special praise at this point should go to Konchesky, Healy, Seol, Simon Davies, Kuqi, Baird and Beasant who were signing for ages - apologies to any I missed - but not to Danny Murphy who ignored the fans' requests and ran straight onto the coach. Not very impressive - and hardly a way to endear yourself to your new club's supporters. Konch said the lads were all disappointed with the result in the dressing room – I never thought I’d hear one of our players saying that after a visit to Stamford Bridge!

Once the coach departed - at almost ten to six - we walked around by the Chelsea megastore on the way out and who should we bump into? Lawrie Sanchez with some friends. To say he looked miserable would be a huge understatement, but maybe that’s his normal expression. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to pepper him with questions, but in our brief chat he mentioned that he’d predicted a one-nil win to us, which nearly came true, and said he was pleased to have at last kept a clean sheet this season. However, he was very polite and asked us if we enjoyed the match, etc. He’s actually quite an imposing figure close up and I certainly wouldn’t like to be on his wrong side to be honest! So there you go, quite an eventful day for us + we weren’t the last game to be shown on Match of the Day so more than one reason to celebrate our hard-earned point.