There’s a great film called the Wild Bunch. If you don’t know it, it’s a story about an aging group of outlaws looking for one last big score as the “traditional” American West is disappearing around them. It’s directed by Sam Peckinpah and of course contains his infamous stylised slow motion violence, as the old gang make one last stand. It’s a classic, and one of my favourite films, and my mind has been cast back to it in the light of the recent journey the Old Guard of Chelsea have been taking over the last three months.

Written off by the owner, the board, the media and a precocious but flawed coach in the guise of AVB…but not by the supporters, Chelsea’s Old Guard have provided us with a story that would be more believable had we watched a fictionalised account of it on the silver screen!

Confounding the pundits and beating the odds to put in repeated backs to the wall performances to beat Napoli, Benfica and Barcelona to reach the Champions League final is undoubtedly the basis for a feature film script. Just as incredible, is the addition of our cherished FA Cup final victory against a loathed rival, breaking records and making some serious history in the process. But, on the 19^th May 2012 we face the denouement, the last scene of this most incredible of seasons. For me this represents the ‘last hurrah’ not just for some of our most legendary players, but also the Manager, and may be even thousands of Chelsea supporters.

It is well known that the Owner has pursued glory in the Champions League like Indiana Jones pursued the Holy Grail, but he is not alone. Since the arrival of our munificent owner, when competing for Europe’s premier competition became a reality, the core of this great team has been simpatico with the Owner’s desire to bring the Cup with the Big Ear’s home. They have faced blood, sweat and tears, injustice on a corporate scale and unbelievable bad luck as they have just missed out repeatedly over the last 8 years.

How fitting it would be for the likes of Petr Cech; Ashley Cole; John Terry; Frank Lampard; Michael Essien and Didier Drogba if they could find redemption in a victory that their performances and commitment to the club and the cause fully merits. But how long will they remain to savour this, possibly their greatest Chelsea victory? For them there must be a sense of the ‘last hurrah’, their last chance of ultimate glory wearing a Chelsea shirt in front of their adoring supporters.

There is a very distinct possibility that the 19^th May could be the last time we see some of these players give their all for Chelsea. If this is the case, I will be very sad, but if it is to be their final contribution then I hope that they give every ounce of skill and effort to go out in the blaze of glory that their status in the history of this great club commands.

Spare a thought for Robbie Di Matteo too. A man with impeccable Chelsea credentials, humility and intelligence. A man to whom both the supporters and players must give a huge amount of credit in turning round an ‘annus horribilis’ and in making the impossible, possible. He has already achieved more than the much revered Guus Hiddink managed to achieve, in one month less, and from a worse starting position. In a ‘normal’ club Robbie’s achievements; tactical nous; man-management skills; media friendliness and club credentials would be more than enough to secure a long term contract as manager. But this is Chelsea, and the board have an ‘ology’ in making crass decisions, so there is a distinct possibility that this match could well be the last with Robbie at the helm. This would be a calamitous decision in my view, but if it is done as some vengeful act of spite against those who dared to question poor decisions and appointments, then that would be a greater tragedy for the club and its supporters. I am so glad that in recent matches the Chelsea choir have boomed out many a rendition of “One Di Matteo”. If the inevitable happens (avoid dark corridors in the Allianz Arena Robbie!), then I hope that whoever the replacement for Robbie is, they are greeted vociferously with chants of “One Di Matteo” at their first matches in charge next season. They will have a hard act to follow.

But if the Champions League final represents a ‘last hurrah’ for the manager and some of the greatest ever players to wear a Chelsea shirt, it could well be too for many loyal supporters. We are living in seriously hard times at the moment, and I know many, myself included, who have spent their last pound making sure they can be there to witness history in the making. It’s an expensive business, and I wonder how many of us will have the funds to renew season tickets two weeks after forking out for FA Cup and Champions League semis and finals, not to mention the criminally inflated prices for travel and accommodation to Munich.

This whole process has a sinister commercial feel to it, and I get the impression that the cannon fodder that is the loyal supporter are the last to be recognised in the inequity of it all. The allocation of tickets for the final is almost intentionally corrupt thanks to the Euro gravy train that is UEFA. This inexorably leads to thousands of tickets being touted for 10 times their face value, when they should be going to loyal supporters. In such circumstances, the loyalty points system in force at the club seriously needs to be reviewed when hundreds of supporters who have been to every European away game can’t get near to getting a ticket for the most important Chelsea match ever.

A great Chelsea mate of mine emailed me the other day after he failed to get both an FA Cup Final and Champions League final ticket, despite having supported Chelsea since the ‘50’s and as a season ticket holder for over 30 years…

“Meanwhile 1000′s of the ‘old guard’ with no tickets who have followed them over the shit years will be heading out to Europe without a ticket! But I sense with the same feeling of increasing ‘dis-enfranchisement’ from the Club that has crept up on me in recent years. We used to feel part of the club, almost central to it, when the travelling numbers and noise levels of our support was breath-taking, but are now basically ‘cast aside’. The club do not give a damn about its real long serving fans and I think they will now start to depart in droves once we finally get the European Cup Final win under our belts. I sense that, like me, they are considering Munich as the last hurrah. The ‘old Chelsea’ and its great following are now a thing of the past, squeezed out by a club that cares feck all for its real followers and only about the cash it brings in, no matter how.”

There is very much a sense of an end of an era for this final, as there was in Stockholm in 1998 where thousands of our very own Old Guard gathered for their ‘Last Hurrah’, not to be seen at Stamford Bridge again, but to be replaced by those who know nothing of the history of this club, and who care even less.

I’ll see you in Munich for the ‘Last Hurrah’…hopefully!

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