Today’s ‘On This Day’ feature looks at Chelsea’s programme for the 1991/92 season. Read the full review below and visit the 1991/92 page to see all the other top-flight issues from that season.
Chelsea’s programme was one of the more substantial for the 1991/92 season, with only London rivals Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur offering more pages of content. The standard programme for the season contained 40 pages and cost £1.30, but larger versions with 64 pages, costing £2.00, were produced for some of the bigger matches, such as Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.
For the game against Nottingham Forest, the standard issue was produced. The programme included columns from several senior personnel at the club. Manager Ian Porterfield reflected on recent results and welcomed Forest – declaring that the visitors had “as strong a squad as anyone in the First Division”. Chairman Ken Bates was in typically combative form, outlining the legal position concerning Chelsea’s attempts to secure their future at Stamford Bridge. Meanwhile, Managing Director Colin Hutchinson reflected on the ambitions of many clubs in the non-league game who were looking to achieve league status, warning of the financial risks if attendances did not keep pace with increases in spend. He also argued that it was important for English clubs in European competition to succeed for the league to be allocated more than the four European places then available.
‘What Happened To?’ was a historical column from Albert Sewell, which here profiled goalkeeper Reg Matthews. The player became the most expensive goalkeeper in the game when moving to Chelsea for £20,000 in 1956 and would make 148 appearances for the club before moving to Derby County in 1961. Four pages were allocated to a profile of one Chelsea player, with the subject in the Forest issue being young midfielder Graham Stuart. The issue included a couple of pages of news from club insider Neil Barnett, while ‘Playback’ featured various action pictures from a recent Chelsea game.
Visitors Nottingham Forest were covered over four pages, which included a team group picture, notes on the club’s form, and profiles of the playing squad. The Forest content included extensive stats, an honours board, and a ‘Did You Know?’ section with ten facts about the club. A further two pages were taken up with an interview with Forest striker, Teddy Sheringham, who had moved to Forest for a club record £2 million in the summer of 1991. In related content, ‘All Our Yesterdays’ gathered various snippets of historical interest from matchups between Chelsea and Forest, including a 7-0 win at the City Ground for the Nottingham club the previous season.
The programme also included a page each for Chelsea’s reserves and youth teams, which provided detailed coverage of the respective sides, with match reports sitting alongside results, tables, and scorer records. The two-page first team statistics section was similarly comprehensive.
This was a fine programme from Chelsea, with the columns from Bates and Hutchinson constituting essential reading for anyone concerned with the Blues’ fortunes. With detailed coverage of the club’s various teams, and an in-depth visitors’ section, the Chelsea issue was one of the stand-out programmes of the season.