Chelsea (0) – QPR (3) – 28th December, 1974 & Our First League Victory
at Stamford Bridge
Team: Parkes, Clement, Gillard, Masson, McLintock, Webb, Thomas, Francis,
Beck, Bowles, Givens.
Sub: Shanks
Attendance: 38,917
John Hollins captained the opposition and Ray Wilkins also played.
Ken Jones’s match report appeared in the Sunday Mirror the following day:
‘Dave Sexton was delighted, but he wouldn’t let it show. Gloating is not his style.
“I was nervous,” he admitted, as though embarrassed by the completeness of
his comeback.
Sacked by Chelsea three months ago, his return to Stamford Bridge as manager of
Queen’s Park Rangers had turned out to be a triumph. “I was like a player going back
to face a club who gave him a free transfer,” he said.
“There was something to prove.”
The proof came with the sudden excellence of Rangers football in the second half.
They scored three times and left Chelsea’s defence in ruins. But not before referee
Bob Matthewson had been stretched to the limits of his patience by the seamier side
of British football.
“The worst referee we have had this season,” muttered someone
in Chelsea’s tea room at half-time. It was a common complaint. T
he criticism ignored a constant flow of fouls and bickering back-chat. Mr Matthewson
wasn’t always right. Referees rarely are. You take the good with the bad which is what
the players were not prepared to do. “Cool it,” instructed both managers at half-time.
Cool it they did, but not before referee Matthewson had rightly booked Clement and
Francis of Rangers and Chelsea’s Droy and Harris.
By then, Parkes had kept Rangers going
with a collection of outstanding saves as Chelsea surged forward with a wicked wind at their backs.
Kember, Garland and Wilkins will all support Chelsea manager Ron Suart’s opinion
that Parkes, on hisday, is as good as there is.
Losing Hutchinson with a back strain didn’t help
Chelsea’s cause and with Kember at half speed they were suddenly there to be taken.
The damage was done on the floor by lively, intelligent running at the heart of a
leaden-footed defence. But first it was Francis with a shot from nowhere in the fiftieth
minute who sickened Chelsea. He found the top far corner of Phillips’ goal with an angled
twenty-five yarder. A linesman’s flag delayed the jubilation, but only for a second or two.
Referee Matthewson knew a good thing when he saw it. Within two minutes, Givens flat-footed
Hay and the cumbersome Droy to strike Beck’s pass low and left-footed for the second.
He was six inches away from another barely a minute later. But it was Givens who got the
third, running Bowles’s fine pass beyond Phillips to squeeze a shot through the legs of
three defenders.
“A game of two halves, “said Chelsea manager Suart. The right one belonged to
Sexton. Man of the Match: Phil Parkes.
-
- Site Admin
- Posts: 3356
- Joined: Tue Nov 30, 2021 10:25 am
-
- Posts: 1452
- Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2021 9:58 am
- Location: Running down the Uxbridge Road
Re: Our First League Victory at Stamford Bridge...
The first of many....was a time, we'd always beat them at the Bush,
then get least a point at the Bridge.
The good old days......
then get least a point at the Bridge.
The good old days......
