Continuing our series ’50 Years of Chelsea’ looking back, season by season, from the FA Cup winning 1970 season to present day; Stamford Chidge is joined by Jonathan Kydd and Kelvin Barker, author of ‘Celery: Representing Chelsea in the ’80’s’; ‘Chelsea Here, Chelea There’ and writer for cfcuk, to look back at the 1989-90 season.
Chelsea are back in Division One after their record breaking previous season. They finish this season in 5th place, their best finish since 1970, largely due to Kerry Dixon’s 25 goals and Kevin Wilson’s 20 goals but the defence had a big part to play too with Dave Beasant outstanding in goal ably assisted by Steve Clarke, Gareth Hall, Ken Monkou, Erland Johnsen and Tony Dorigo.
Chelsea secured their second trophy in four years winning the Zenith Data Systems trophy at Wembley in a 1-0 victory over Middlesbrough. A shame their cup finesse didn’t include going deep in the FA and League Cups with a third round departure against Bristol City in the FA Cup and lowly Scarborough knocking Chelsea out of the League Cup.
A talented crop of youngsters such as David Lee; Gareth Hall; Frank Sinclair; Jason Cundy; Graeme Le Saux; Graham Stuart; Damien Matthew; Craig Burley were beginning to break into the side which augured well for the future
All in all a very memorable season and as ever, never a dull moment at Chelsea in a season enthusiastically remembered by Chidge, Jonathan and Kelvin.
