I’m excited about the home game against Leicester this coming weekend. Well, of course, any Chelsea supporter would be, wouldn’t they?
A chance to bury the nightmare on Elland Road last weekend; maybe see Raheem Sterling score his first goal for the club and see Conor Gallagher make his full home debut. You know the score.
All of the above, but I will be especially excited to see the return of the Kerry Dixon banner which has bedecked the hoardings of the Matthew Harding upper tier since the Chelsea v Bate Borisov match in October 2018.
Thanks to Brian Wolff of Chelsea Chicago, we updated the banner over the summer to make the ‘One 93 Kerry Dixon’ clearer and the banner bigger.
I still find it astonishing that before I came up with the idea to have a banner for Kerry, there was nothing inside the stadium to honour one of our greatest ever players, and characters for that matter. Surely our (now) third highest goal scorer and one of the best number 9’s we’ve seen at the club deserved to be honoured by the supporters who idolised him? Perhaps even more pertinent given our distinct lack of anyone currently worthy of wearing the number 9 shirt since, well, probably Diego Costa.
This is a man, remember, who was the best player in the side for 9 years; in a period when we were as likely to get relegated as we were to challenge for the top 5 (as it was then). More than that Kerry for years was Chelsea’s second highest all time goal scorer with 193 goals, behind Bobby Tambling with 202. Kerry was relegated to number three in the all-time list by a certain Frank Lampard a few years ago, but his achievements for the club and the loyalty he showed us should not be forgotten. More than that he is a bona fide Chelsea legend.
Thanks to the contributions of Chelsea FanCast listeners, we were able to fund the banner for Kerry Dixon, which immortalises Kerry’s famous goal celebration from his favourite Chelsea goal scored against Arsenal at Highbury in 1984 on Chelsea’s return to Division One. It also bears the legend 193 to mark the number of goals Kerry scored for Chelsea. Why have we written this as One 93? Well, the chant universally used for Kerry back in the day was “One Kerry Dixon, there’s only one Kerry Dixon”, so it seemed appropriate to write it this way to portray the double meaning of it.
It also seemed highly appropriate that me and the Chelsea FanCast put the wheels in motion to sort out a banner for Kerry. He was my Chelsea hero when I first came to the Bridge, and I had the privilege of producing a weekly podcast with him for a couple of years. Kerry has become part of the Chelsea FanCast family and has become a good friend in the process (yes, I still pinch myself at that fact!).
It might surprise you to know that a man who swaggered about on the pitch with all the confidence of a man who scored goals by the bucket load is actually incredibly humble. He was very touched by the banner and humbled by the fact that we still support him to the extent that we do.
As well as a history of great players, Chelsea also has a great history with banners.
The two magnificent crowd surfers displayed before the Sp*rs game are the latest in a long line of displays going back through the years. The first crowd surfer banner at Chelsea was the original ‘Pride of London’ banner, which appeared in 1994.
Mark Pulver and Mark Meehan of the Chelsea Independent Supporters Association commissioned Chelsea’s first crowd surfer flag, unveiled at Stamford Bridge in the FA Cup Quarter Final against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Sunday March 13th 1994. It was a great success and Mark Meehan picks up the tale:
“The West Stand kidnapped the flag at the end of the match and unfurled it themselves and took it on a tour of the pitch, all in front of the Match of the Day cameras. For some reason someone stuck his head right through the flag as it went on a lap of honour around Stamford Bridge and almost out down the Fulham Road. The 1-0 defeat of Wolves meaning Chelsea reached the FA Cup semi-final led, to the pitch invasion with the flag at the centre of it!”
The flag became a fixture at home games and many away games until 1997 when Ken Bates banned it from Stamford Bridge due to his strained relationship with the Chelsea Independent Supporters Association and perhaps not wanting to do anything that might show supporters in a positive light!
The mantle was then picked up in 2002 by the editor of this Fanzine, when Chelsea played Fulham in another FA Cup semi-final, this time played at Villa Park.
When Roman Abramovich bought the club in 2003, a more benign view of supporters and their efforts with banners took hold. Since then, the massive crowd surfer flags have become an essential part of the match day ritual in the Matthew Harding Lower and sometimes simultaneously in the upper tier too, as well as the Shed End through the We Are the Shed group.
It’s not just the brilliant displays in the Matthew Harding and the Shed End though. Banners adorn all four sides of the ground on the hoardings between the lower and upper tiers. Many are from supporters’ clubs from the UK and all over the world. The remainder honour some of the club’s greatest players and legends: Ray Wilkins; Peter Bonetti; Peter Osgood, Didier Drogba; John Terry; Frank Lampard; Eden Hazard; Gianfranco Zola; Cesar Azpilicueta; Paul Canoville and of course, Kerry Dixon.
Like the players they honour, the banners are an essential part of the history and culture of the club, and it is entirely appropriate that they are conceived, designed, organised and paid for by the people best placed to do so: Chelsea supporters.
It might seem trivial to some, or even a hindrance to those tasked with getting the marketing and branding messages out visibly on a match day or topping up the revenue streams with advertising on the hoardings. But believe me, they are far from trivial and very important to the supporters.
Chelsea FanCast listeners from overseas helped to fund the Kerry Dixon banner and the reason they told me they did was to have a visible reference point in the stadium on a match day and something they felt part of and connected to. For many overseas supporters it’s a chance to feel deeply embedded and involved with the club and its match going supporters despite being thousands of miles away and watching on TV.
Whether you are lucky enough to be in the stadium or watching from thousands of miles away on TV, the banners are a great way of showing our support. It gives supporters a sense of being further involved. It’s more than just being in attendance there, you feel part of it all and it definitely adds to the colour, atmosphere and a sense of our history. They look great and the supporters love it. They are a great articulation of Chelsea culture, everything that we’re proud of and proud to be.
The players absolutely love them too. After the Cesar Azpilicueta banner was unveiled, Chelsea’s captain was the first person to comment on twitter and mentioned it in his Captain’s notes in the match day programme.
Whether the flags and banners are designed to send a message to the players, the club, opposition supporters or the media, they are an integral part of match day culture for the supporters, who produce and pay for them. And that’s the point. It’s a labour of love and a fantastic way to show the world the support we give to former and current players at the club.
As we undergo the biggest transition at the club for 20 years, our new owners should acquaint themselves with the culture and history of the club they have bought. A great starting point would be the various banners, flags and crowd surfers, whose messages often relay the nuances of our history and support.
Maybe they are as important to Stamford Bridge as the Ravens are to the Tower of London. Remove them or replace them with something more prosaic, and Stamford Bridge might crumble! Just in case, probably better to leave it to the Chelsea supporters and keep the flags and banners flying high at Stamford Bridge. After all, it’s a Chelsea Supporter thing!
First published in cfcuk fanzine August 2022
