Bridge Rocks As Peacock Knocks Out Flagging Wolves

(Reposted with permission from the original source at https://www.chelseaheritagepartnership.com/post/bridge-rocks-as-peacock-knocks-out-wolves ) 

March 1994. Thirty-one years ago but a lifetime ago in Chelsea terms. The Shed was still open, the ground undeveloped, though the North Stand was being rebuilt, hence a reduced capacity. There were relatively few season ticket holders and most supporters paid at the turnstile. The club had not won a major trophy for 23 years. Expectations of success were low.

Glenn Hoddle was player-manager, appointed the previous summer. It had been a strange season. An unbeaten run of seven games was followed shortly after by a run of two draws and nine defeats in eleven games, culminating in a post-Xmas 3-1 defeat at The Dell which left the side in 21st place. A real turnaround then took place, with just two defeats in fourteen games, meaning a rise to 17th place (though by no means safe from relegation) and a quarter-final place in the FA Cup, against Saturday’s opponents Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The FA Cup run had not been desperately auspicious. Two games to dispose of Barnet, another two to knock out Sheffield Wednesday (though the 3-1 replay win at Hillsborough was laudable), then a 2-1 victory at Oxford United, a sold-out game my friend Hugh watched from up a tree. Reaching the sixth round, though, created genuine excitement. Two years earlier the club had been knocked out at the same stage in a replay at Roker Park, Chelsea’s first visit to the last eight since 1982. They had not reached the last four since the glory days of 1970, Ossie, Hutch, David Webb and all.

In the run up to the Wolves game Chelsea beat Tottenham 4-3 at Stamford Bridge, in an astonishing game. They followed that with a surprise, and highly creditable, 1-0 win at Old Trafford, Gavin Peacock scoring, so confidence was relatively high. The number of top sides already eliminated meant Chelsea were 6-1 joint second-favourites (with Oldham Athletic) to lift the cup, behind overwhelming favourites Manchester United. With United likely to retain the League title, should they reach the final then their opponents would automatically play in Europe the following season. Another incentive, if one were needed.

We got to the Fox and Pheasant really early and it was already rammed, with chanting inside and out, presumably to the fury of the local residents. The buzz in the pub and on the surrounding streets was palpable, and a relative rarity in those days, when hope exceeded expectation before most games and crowds were regularly well under 20,000.

The press previews focussed on the efforts of strikers Mark Stein and John Spencer to get fit. Stein had recently scored in seven successive Premier League records, an astonishing record in an unexceptional side, but injured his ankle at Old Trafford. In the end the injury kept him out and, indeed, he did not play again until the last League game of the season, eight weeks later. Spencer played as Chelsea lined up :- Kharine; Clarke, Kjeldbjerg, Johnson, Sinclair; Burley, Newton, Peacock, Wise; Spencer, Hopkin. Subs. Hoddle, Shipperley.

The game was live on BBC1, kicking off at 3.05pm on the Sunday afternoon, while gave little time for the pre-match pundit build-up.

Wolves were mid-table in Division Two, and their talismanic striker Steve Bull was out with a long-term injury, but their manager Graham Turner felt they had a chance against an erratic home side, especially without the prolific Stein, and with Hoddle only fit to sit on the bench.

The crowd was 29,340, which sounds low by 2025 standards but was actually almost 10,000 more than for the Tottenham visit a fortnight earlier. This despite the game being live on TV. My personal recollection was that The Bridge rocked that afternoon as it had not rocked for years. We had seats in the East Lower and the atmosphere in there was cracking. Part of me, a Shed regular for 18 years, still regrets not being in there for the last really big game at The Bridge before the demolition.

Wolves had a couple of early chances, but Chelsea’s fitness gamble failed when Spencer lasted just 19 minutes before his back injury recurred and he trooped off. This necessitated Peacock going up front alongside David Hopkin and Hoddle coming on. The player-manager had been out for four months with an ankle injury but made an immediate impact, his skill shining in a sea of mediocrity and bustle. Turner later lamented that Hoddle’s arrival on the pitch was ‘the worst thing that could have happened to us.’

Mike Stowell made good saves from Spencer and Hoddle, and David Hopkin put a decent chance wide, but it was a pretty dour encounter till Craig Burley’s cross-cum-shot was volleyed home just before the hour by Peacock, his fourth goal of that cup run. The whole ground went nuts. And I do mean nuts.

Wolves pressed but Hoddle’s men, driven on by captain Dennis Wise, hung on and, when Graham Poll ended the encounter, the crowd celebrated long and loud. I was used to leaving listlessly on the final whistle and heading for the tube, but not that day, as thousands stayed to glory in the long overdue return to the big time. The good-natured, euphoric mass pitch invasion emphasised just what victory meant to the long-suffering faithful. The Daily Mirror referred to ‘the friendliest of invasions’ as supporters ‘kissed the turf, did hand-stands, paraded a giant (‘Pride Of London’) flag.’ (Mark Meehan details the tale of that flag below).

A very welcome distraction from the relegation struggle, for sure, but much more than that, it meant Chelsea’s first game at Wembley in a major tournament for 22 years, with all the accompanying hullabaloo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-0dICR25AQ Brief match highlights here.

Hoddle’s imperious performance attracted much praise in the Monday papers, the Daily Express comparing it to ‘blowing the dust off an old master that has been kept in the attic.’ Hoddle, keen to cool the feverish excitement on the terraces and in the dressing room, told the Daily Express ‘we haven’t achieved anything yet…nobody remembers the beaten semi-finalists’. The semi-final draw pitted Hoddle’s men against West Ham or Luton and Wise enthused ‘we have got the semi-final draw we wanted’, seeing Oldham as ‘a bit of a bogey side’ and understandably wanting to avoid United.

Luton surprisingly went through after a replay, and Chelsea comfortably beat them 2-0 in the Wembley semi-final before hitting a grim and very damp brick wall with a 4-0 final defeat to Manchester United. This whetting of the big-match appetite, though, paved the way to a decent European run the following season and, three years later, FA Cup triumph.

Interestingly, Barry Davies pre-match comments included a reference to a station to be built behind the East Stand. 31 years and still waiting…

There is an argument that that day, with the crowd, the passion and the victory, was an early step in the transition from the ‘old’ underachieving, lumpen, Chelsea to the ‘new,’ successful and glamorous Chelsea. It was a truly memorable day, remembered so fondly by so many, over thirty years later.

Tim Rolls

Mark Meehan Flags A Fascinating Tale

Making their debut at home to Wolves that day was not a late signing in the transfer window but the Blue Flag.

The idea of having a huge blue flag started in the Warrington pub in Maida Vale following a Thursday night 5 a side football session with members of the Chelsea Independent Supporters Association (CISA). CISA board member Mark Pulver had noticed Newcastle had started flying a large black and white flag in the Gallowgate end during the season so he quickly found out from them that a man called Ted was the Geordie “wor flag” man. He provided contact details of makers AA Flags in Consett. Psychologically it was important that any Chelsea flag had to be bigger than Newcastle’s so a 100ft by 50ft (5000 square ft) Royal Blue with 6ft high letting and a 23ft rampant lion with two stars was duly commissioned at the end of February 1994 after the 5th round win away to Oxford United.

The total cost including fire proofing, safety certificate and VAT was £1915.25.

Having obtained agreement from Keith Lacey, Chelsea’s Safety Officer at Stamford Bridge, (who was extremely helpful and supportive) we all turned up at the side gate at the Shed End an hour before kick-off. We showed our match tickets to the stewards on the door and then carried round this huge flag in front of the Shed and put it down in front of the West Stand. There had been no advance publicity that the flag was being unveiled and the surprise in the stadium when a dozen of us started making hand signals to everyone in the benches to pick up the flag and push it backwards over the heads soon gained momentum and it soon moved to the back of the West Stand and then back and forth between the Shed and the West Stand as if by magic as the “Blue Flag” was sung across the stadium.

With our flag team seats all around the stadium we agreed we would leave the flag rolled up in front of the benches and that Steve and Chris Boucher who had tickets for the benches would be on flag guard duty. When the final whistle went the Boucher brothers had little chance to protect the flags as hundreds of fans in the benches invaded the pitch and “kidnapped” the flag and took it on a lap of honour around Stamford Bridge. Some idiot for some reason decided to put a hole in the flag and poke his head through it! If some of us had not ran on to the pitch to retrieve it, I am sure it would have been marched out of the ground and down the Fulham Road to Wembley.

It was a tremendous moment and helped towards a wonderful atmosphere and the Blue Flag would get further outings at Highbury, Maine Road and twice at Wembley that season, but the following Monday morning when I was at work I got a surprise phone call.

At the time I was working for Westminster Council and answered the phone first thing Monday morning with “ Mark Meehan, Assessment and Advice, can I help you?” and a voice on the other end of phone shouted down the line “ Assessment and Advice, are you some kind of Social Worker! My office Saturday 11am!!” and the caller put the phone down before I even had the chance to say ”Morning Ken”

I and other Chelsea Independent Board Members were summonsed to Ken’s office the following Saturday before the Wimbledon game where a riot act was read as post-match the Football Association were unhappy with the pitch invasion by jubilant Chelsea fans with the Blue Flag and Uncle Ken pinned it on the Chelsea Independent to begin with. Once the riot act was read, he did though say after that the club would deal with the FA and he thought the flag looked tremendous but we had to make sure we took greater care of it in future and there could be no further pitch invasions. We agreed and the Blue Flag had further outings at Highbury, Maine Road and Wembley (twice) that season and is now a regular feature pre match at every Chelsea home game to this day.

Mark Meehan