Long before John Terry, long before Rupert Lowe, we Chelsea fans were used to getting a certain “look” when somebody asked who we support. One that falls somewhere between an eye roll, an about-take and a micro-aneurysm. Sometimes it came with a grimace, a groan, a jeer or, in some circles, an aggressive chin jut.
From time to time, this antipathy can manifest in bizarre ways. Many moons ago, I was stepping on to a waltzer at a west London funfair with my eight-year-old brother. As we sat down on the ride, his fresh Autoglass-sponsored Chelsea shirt revealed itself from under his jacket. The waltzer operator came over immediately, leaned in, and whispered the immortal words “Chelsea fan are ya? You’re gonna have a really good ride,” before beckoning over his fellow carnies and launching something akin to a Nasa motion sickness training session, which sent us both puking candy floss on to the wet grass.
It was an early lesson in tribalism. Because there has always been something about Chelsea Football Club that many people cannot stomach. It is a club that comes with more baggage than the Changi Airport departures lounge. A team that, to many, represents not just the worst of British football culture, but also the worst of British culture itself and global finance excess. One product of which is John Terry.
First and foremost, there’s the unfortunate, long-standing connection with terrace violence and far-right activity from supporters. Then there’s the location, the name, the dubious links to Kremlin money, the marginally less dubious venture capital money, the royal blue shirts, our strange habit of being able to compete for trophies while being sportingly deficient, and the inherent “flashiness” that pervades the club. We have not one, but two makeshift weapons (a rolled-up newspaper and a credit card jammed in someone’s mouth) attributed to us. Our most famous chant has the word “fuck” in it.
To its detractors, Chelsea is the club of Roman Abramovich, Ken Bates, George Osborne and the hooligan Jason Marriner. We have a Marco Pierre White restaurant in the ground, and had electric fences being installed in the Eighties, and one of our flop wingers is now serving a four-year drug ban for taking “Soviet super-soldier” supplements. And then, of course, there’s John Terry.
Terry is a long-running nightmare in metropolitan, conscientious Britain. Even before his racial abuse incident with Anton Ferdinand in 2011, there was an inkling that he was probably rather right-wing. But now – possibly assured that he will never get the managerial position thanks to an understandably wary boardroom – he’s finally put his politics where his mouth is. And guess what: he isn’t backing Zack Polanski’s party in the Cobham ward.
Responding to one of Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe’s many low-res social media posts, which called for immigrants to be banned from claiming benefits, Terry commented, “100 per cent yes”. This is after he had already liked another Lowe post that bemoaned a Bengali-language sign at Whitechapel station. Terry’s ex-teammate Dennis Wise – no less of a controversial character in his day – then doubled the bet with “200 per cent”. Of course, Wise and Terry are not the only ex-footballers who back right-wing parties (or perhaps even more fringe groups), but it all fuels a certain fire that Chelsea is some kind of hive of viciousness and right-wing thought leadership.
It’s an idea that is hard to argue against. You can point to various club initiatives, a rapidly diversifying fanbase, investment in the women’s game, and being the only top-level Premier League club to have hired two black managers, but it’s a losing battle. When arguably your greatest-ever player – a footballer so omnipresent, so combative, that he transcends “talismanic” and becomes a kind of one-man Chelsea deep state – looks as if he backs Restore, you probably have to take it on the chin. Whenever something like this happens, there is a sense of “I’m going to have to talk about this with someone”, or, “the Gooners I know are going to have a field day with this”.
At times, supporting Chelsea can feel like an antisocial act in itself, like waving cash in a parking warden’s face – or parking your Range Rover in a disabled space (as Terry himself notoriously did). For years my line of defence was generally, “Look, I just support my local team (that isn’t Brentford).” Yet recently I’ve become more gleefully unashamed about supporting Chelsea. All at a time in which we are playing some of the worst football I can remember.
Because as the game becomes more and more enmeshed with lifestyle, social media and “Big Culture”, there is something beautifully, oddly transgressive about supporting a team like Chelsea. Being “Chels” is not something you do to become more popular. It’s not going to get you a promotion at work, or get you featured on a heartwarming TikTok reel about dedicated fans. Granted, you’ll see a few flashes of glory, but largely, it will make life harder for you.
Watching the Arsenal vs City League Cup final game in a south-east London pub recently, surrounded by monied 30-somethings in suspiciously clean, new-edition kits and cash-in merch, it occurred to me that I support a messy, chaotic football team, and not a lifestyle brand or sports entertainment conglomerate. That there is something quite beautiful about following something for no other reason than that you grew up in that milieu and that you were indoctrinated into it.
Chelsea’s media team does try to create a kind of positive mythology around the club, but it never quite works in the way it does for other teams. Our “legacy content” is mostly derivative and falls flat. None of our players are particularly marketable. Cole Palmer is unlikely to present a Department of Education campaign, as some footballers have, and Enzo Fernández remains a difficult, unfulfilled presence in the global “baller” matrix. Our celebrity fan is not Anne Hathaway, but Suggs from Madness. It’s all brilliantly pony – as the local parlance goes.
Football clubs are often tritely compared to religions, but real faith has to come with an element of “why am I doing this? Do I really have to defend this?” In a day and age when a place on the Emirates waiting list seems to come as an employment benefits package at most London offices, supporting Chelsea remains personal, familial and wonderfully unhelpful to wider ambitions. So much so, that you can imagine that even Rupert Lowe isn’t entirely happy with the endorsement of Dennis Wise – or John Terry.
[Further reading: Rupert Lowe and the rise of zombie politics]
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