Andy Hamilton has published a book about his life as a Chelsea fan. Photo: Steve Ullathorne
Back in 1995, the Royal Television Society Award for Best Single Drama on Television went to a Channel 4 film called Eleven Men Against Eleven. It was a superb piece of work starring Timothy West and James Bolam, perhaps the best football comedy ever made. Making a pertinent comment on the growing villainy of the game, he misrepresented everything from shady chairmen and shady agents to the even more insidious Far Eastern bookmaking syndicates. And damn, it made you laugh.
Looking back on it almost 30 years later and laughing at his prescience, it quickly becomes apparent that this was the work of a man who actually knew what he was talking about. And this is not surprising, since the author of the article, Andy Hamilton, admits that his obsession with football has long been close to a medical problem. Growing up in a flat three minutes' walk from Stamford Bridge, he regularly attended Chelsea games from the age of six, forcing his mother to knit him a pair of socks exactly like those worn by Jimmy Greaves. Throughout his stellar career as a screenwriter, comedian, radio presenter and, most importantly, as the voice of Dr. Elephant in the children's show Peppa Pig, he has continually returned to the Bridge. Game after game, trophy after trophy, coach after coach, he was there. Until now. Last year he gave up his season ticket. And he's just written a wonderful book called Blue Was the Color, explaining the reasons for the end of his lifelong devotion.
«It's mourning a broken relationship,» he says of the book when met by Telegraph Sport in a bar in Soho. “This was done by a man who feels and behaves like a jilted lover. It seems to me that football is now in the hands of people who have no goals other than making money. And I refuse to be part of their game.»
But here's what's strange. When he wrote Eleven Men Against Eleven, the same thing could have been said. This was not a feel-good comedy in the Ted Lasso style. It was a brutal dissection, laced with cynical humor. Without giving too much away, the conclusion reveals that James Bolam's enduring football romance is shattered by the discovery that it was so: football, as he discovers when his personal dream is shattered, has always been the dirtiest of sports, money-obsessed and broken. And yet Hamilton did not refuse to attend matches. He continued to be a regular at the Bridge for another two and a half decades. So what prompted him to leave a game he had long considered tainted? Did he just turn into a grumpy old man?
“Well, I’m old and grumpy,” he admits. “But I think this is an existential moment for football, a real challenge to what it wants to be. New investors are looking to make it a global business through television. And Chelsea is an example of where something went wrong. The club is being subjected to a ridiculous business experiment with no understanding of what the sport should be. We don't know who the real owners are or who this Clearlake business is. It's so dark. It got ridiculously out of control.”
But if his problem is with those in the directors' box, he watched Chelsea as Brian Mears nearly drove them into bankruptcy, as Ken Bates threatened to install electric fences to corral his clients, and through all the controversy surrounding Roman. Abramovich's property. Why are Todd Boely and his hapless crew more objectionable than this unholy catalogue?
Ken Bates had a love-hate relationship with Chelsea fans Photo: John Sibley/Action Images
“Part of it is me,” he says. “I think over time you grow from something. I admit the team was a mixed bag in the Bates era, but you look back on it with real fondness now. Partly because there were a lot of personalities that you connected with. I remember one time I was late for a game at Holland Park and found out that Pat Nevin was playing there and had left as soon as I got there. Imagine this with someone who currently plays for Chelsea. And Doug Rugwi: all the Chelsea fans knew he wasn't very good, but we loved him and he would come to the pub and talk to us. These connections have disappeared. You literally have no idea who these people wearing this shirt are now. In fact, I don't think these people even know each other. That's the one big advantage that any team playing Chelsea under Böhli has: at least they were introduced before kick-off.»
Pat Nevin (left) had a deep connection with Chelsea fans. Photo: Brian Smith
As Hamilton explains in his book, the growing disconnect hurts all the more because he was once so connected.
“When I was a kid, 95 per cent of my waking thoughts revolved around Chelsea,” he recalls. “I used to watch them train in the Stamford Bridge car park during the school holidays. They looked like us, behaved just like us when they played in the cage next to our house. The idea of letting a bunch of kids watch the team practice now is just not plausible. But that connection was everything. I dreamed of becoming a player. At 69 years old and playing five-a-side football every week, I still think it can happen. Although I recognize that this will lead to the biggest injury crisis in history. The roots of the game go deep into our culture. And they are torn apart by new paths every day.”
And he believes that relationships at the top of the game trickle down.
“Game is a reflection of how we have become less social,” he says. “And they doused him with this extraordinary vitriol. People get overly angry. Yes, I grew up in a time of bullying, which was a manifestation of tribalism. Football is now a 24/7 angry tirade. Now everyone has their own opinion about everything, but this is a destructive relationship. Have you been worried about Harry Maguire your whole life? Come on, it's unhealthy.”
However, his book is not entirely evil. Like all his work over the years, it is also funny, ironic and charming.
“Well, I try to see the funny side of bullshit, delusion, denial,” he says. “Look, I've been predicting for 25 years that the bubble was going to burst. But the bubbles burst. And I think we're in for a real reckoning in football. You never know, maybe we'll come out better on the other side from this.»
And if we do, Andy Hamilton might even return to the Bridge.
«Yes, it is that would be great,” he says with a smile.
Blue Was the Color by Andy Hamilton is published by Floodlit Dreams and Pitch Publishing in the Football Shorts series.
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