Blue is the Colour for this fully paid up member of Chelsea Supporters Anonymous

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By Chelsea fan and Blues blogger Kevin Peacock

Ok, I’m getting paranoid now, I’m starting to feel like an outcast, I’m thinking of joining ‘Chelsea Supporters Anonymous’. This is all because my team, the team I’ve supported since they got to number 5 in the charts with ‘Blue is the Colour’ in 1972, might win something, and everyone else is a little bit jealous.

I’m not sure what’s worse about that statement, the fact that I started supporting Chelsea Football Club because they sang a jolly song, or the petty jealousy that rages around the beautiful game. After all, it is…. only a game (we all know it isn’t).

I was going to write about the how the fans of other teams ought to get over hating Chelsea, but now that song has entered my head, have decided what better, to write about than an iconic 1970’s football song.

To this day one of the most famous football songs ever recorded, Blue is the Colour was written by Daniel Boone and Rod McQueen and recorded at Wessex Sound Studios in Highbury, North London. At least that part of London had a decent recording studio.

What was unusual about the song, was that it was recorded as a precursor to the 1972 League Cup Final against Stoke City. Football songs were normally part of the FA Cup tradition. Incidentally ‘haters’ Chelsea lost the game 2-1. Happy? It didn’t stop me supporting them, though.

Blue is The Colour is sung at every Blues home game and probably taken for granted as part of the pre-match build up. What is, maybe, lost on some of those singing along, is the fact that, the recording features some of Chelsea’s greatest players from that period.  Peter Osgood, John Hollins, Eddie McCreadie, David Webb, Peter Houseman, Ron Harris, Alan Hudson all singing. Some, sadly no longer with us, but they are still part of match days and their legacy didn’t just occur on the football pitch. The playing and singing of that song also allows their memory to live on, it shouldn’t be forgotten.

While searching Google for this article, I found a great clip of the actual recording on YouTube.

It’s a bit grainy but, for me, enjoyable still. The researching also unearthed other versions of the song. It has been adopted and adapted in the Czech Republic under the title ‘Green is the Grass’. Google translate threw up some interesting lyrics to the rest of the song, I won’t bore you. The Danish Olympic Football team used the song, titled Red and White Colours, at the 1972 summer games in Munich.

There are other versions in Japan, Norway, and Finland. Not sure this will be too popular, but it was even used as part of the successful UK Conservative Party election campaign of 1979. ‘Blue is the Colour, Maggie is her name……’, oh dear.

My favourite variation, only because I can understand it… just…can be seen below, thanks to YouTube again. It features, Scottish brothers, The Proclaimers, singing White is the Colour for the Vancouver Whitecaps Soccer team.

So, Mr Boone and Mr McQueen without you I could have been supporting, well, who knows? What I do know is that ‘Blue is the Colour, football is the game, we’re all together and winning is our aim. And the haters? Well……. ‘Blue’s not the colour, football is the game, we’re all together, beating Chelsea is our aim’.

MORE ARTICLES FROM KEVIN PEACOCK:
Diego Costa misses del sol and ponders future… Oh well
Jose Mourinho – great tactician, poor judge of players

Football has lost its direction, says frustrated Chelsea fan