From over-the-top tackles and predatory
paedophiles to a club in such financial crisis that players had to
chip in to pay the coach driver, life at Chelsea FC in the 1970s was
not for the faint-hearted. Yet for lifelong Chelsea fan Steve Wicks,
it was a dream come true.
Having arrived as an apprentice during the club’s
most glamorous era, it wasn’t long before things started to fall
apart; the sales of Alan Hudson and Peter Osgood and the resignation
of manager Dave Sexton led to relegation and to make matters worse
chairman Brian Mears had started to build a new East Stand at
Stamford Bridge in the middle of a recession.
One morning, Steve and his team-mates in the
reserves turned up to find their kit was in the first team dressing
room and, like a scene from The Dirty Dozen, Chelsea chairman Brian
Mears announced that they had just two seasons to save the club and
gain promotion.
Thrown into the man’s world of the Second Division
it was a case of sink or swim. Ray Wilkins was made captain at the
age of 18 and they embarked on one of the most remarkable few
seasons in Chelsea history, winning promotion in 1977 in the nick of
time and holding their own in the First Division.
In January 1979 Steve was forced to move with the
club’s administrator telling him, “If you don't move we cannot
fulfil our fixtures.”
Spells under wise-cracking Tommy Docherty at Derby
and QPR followed before the arrival of Terry Venables at Loftus Road
transformed both the club and the English game, while a second spell
at Chelsea under new owner Ken Bates saw the club in crisis yet
again, Steve played his last game in the infamous promotion play-off
defeat to Middlesbrough. Then he retired rather than go along with
Bates’ plan to hoodwink Spurs into signing him despite a
career-ending back injury. This is the unvarnished truth of life
behind the scenes at one of the biggest clubs in English football.
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