CONGRATS SUPER FRANK -CHELSEA IN AMERICA'S FIRSTPLAYER OF THE YEAR!

CIA Chairwoman Beth Wild and Treasurer Andy Burbidge presented Frank with his award prior to the Club America match - a certificate and a CIA flag signed by themembers!photo by Darren Walsh

SUMMER TOUR 2009 MEMORIES AND PHOTOS

A word from the Editor

•Notes from theChairwoman•Interview withTommy Langley•Photos andAnecdotes from the Summer Tour•August Dates toRemember•Tel's Season inQuestion•5 Questions For...•CFC Cathy's TourDiary

Chelsea have already come and gone - itall went by so quickly! Everyone involvedshould be proud of what became anentertaining and unifying 2009 tour. Itwas a great chance to come together,meet people and support our team, and Iam already eagerly anticipating the nextbig CIA event!We'll hopefully be welcoming lots of newfans thanks to the matches. I know Ihave at least two friends eager to joinChelsea in America after meetingeveryone and witnessing our enthusiasmﬁrst-hand!There will be plenty of thank-you'scontained in the following pages, so I'dlike to dedicate the front page of thisBluesletter to what can tell a better storythan words - the photos.

Photo courtesy of Phil Watson aka Blueref Photo courtesy of Stephen Rea aka stevo

VOLUME 1, ISSUE 4AUGUST 2009

CONTRIBUTORS:

A big thanks to everyone whohelps make the CIA Bluesletterpossible.Editor: Jamie EdwardsChairwoman: Beth WildLogo and Graphics: Raciel DiazDates to Remember: Tel StevensCIA Crest done in collaborationwith Who Are Ya Designs -www.whoareyadesigns.comWant to contribute or make asuggestion? Send Jamie anemail at newsletter@chelseainamerica.com!

WOW! Honestly, that is the only thing Ican think to say to describe the past twoweeks. I don’t know about you but I hadthe best time ever! That was seriouslythe most fun, most happy, mostcelebrated summer tour ever. I got toﬁnally see so many members, and yet Iknow I didn’t get to see all of you. Tothose I missed, I am sorry, and I justwish we had more time.First and always let me thank all thosethat gave time, e

ort and more e

ort toplanning, working and helping out.There is literally a blue army of volunteers that made the summer tourpossible. And thank you from thebottom of my heart and on behalf of everyone for the hours and e

ort youput in. We could never have had such asuccessful summer tour without eachone of you. I send you all my love,thanks and more thanks! As I told a fewof you, generally the summer tours aremore work for me and the otherorganizers than it is fun, and this yearyou gave me the best gift I could haveever imagined - enough time to actuallyenjoy the tour. You were all amazing andI still get very choked up thinking abouthow wonderful you all are that the jobsat hand were shared by so many that sogenerously gave. Thank you from thebottom of my heart.Seattle was the kick o

, and honestly, Iremember ﬁve years ago when thatstadium was not even half full - lookwhat has happened. It was the trueharbinger of a tour of epic proportions,and it set the standard very high. Thefolks at Fado’s were incredible; what agreat place to party. We might have beenvastly outnumbered in Seattle but wewere not out-spirited. And my hats o

to the Sounders supporters; howwonderful to see the support for theirteam and the game in my old stompinggrounds.

Next up was Pasadena, and as much as Ithought it couldn’t get better, what aparty! The tournament was amazing.Though my football skills could only becalled amazing in the lack of skill I have,despite the heat it was quite a greattime! Mitch and Danny should run theFA, as surely we would have a betterschedule with them in charge. And whatcan you say about Lucky B’s? Amazinglywonderful place, and so glad so many of us got a chance to be there if not forwhat seemed like only a ﬂash. And whatabout our seats? Hats o

to LAFCChelsea for giving us the best seats inthe house!

There was quite a trek across thecountry to Baltimore and I just knew itcouldn’t get any better after Seattle andthen Pasadena, but the folks in Baltimorewere awesome. We didn’t really doanything special, but Pratt Street AleHouse is so wonderful! Our own ﬂoor of the pub and what a great time! Despite areal mess up with the practice, I thinkeveryone made up for it by drinkingplenty of Chelsea Bitter and having sucha laugh! Also, what a brilliant night inthe stadium!

That stupid early ﬂight to Dallas was nota good plan, but it all worked out. As weheaded back to my home town, I was abit worried that we could never live up tothe other three venues. But I think wedid! We got everyone to the practice andhow fun was that? The Storm Cellar wasgreat. The tailgate - well we almostmade it through without running out of beer and the food was the best tailgatefood I have ever had. Despite hearingfrom everyone that we would be vastlyout numbered in a half empty stadium,was it just me or was that place nearlyfull and nearly half full of Chelsea! Whata great sing-song, and it was great thatwe won again. Yes, the highlight inTexas was JT announcing he is staying atthe club, but then I should have knownhe would wait until he was in my neck of the woods to say that!

And then there are our Legends (okay,two Legends and a wanker in a hat)! Howamazing was that? Did everyone get tomeet them, or at least one of them? Thebest refs ever! How incredible was it tohave them stuck in with us at every pub,at every practice, at every match? Youknow they aren’t called Legends foranything, and they earned that title onceagain on the Summer Tour! I can tell youthat each one of them must havethanked me and all of you about 100times and said it was the best footballtour they had ever experienced. Howgreat you all were, how much fun theyhad, and yes, that they were going to tellthe other boys that it was sh*t, horrible,that we were horrible, all because theywant to come back again. But you dohave to love them. And thanks to all of you, and I do mean all of you, thatbought tickets, merchandise or eventtickets etc. Thanks to your purchasesand a few generous sponsors we notonly raised the $15,000 to pay for theirway over, but we also raised nearly$4000 for the Past Players Trust! YOUGUYS ARE TRULY AWESOME!

And so for those of you that were thereand those of you that weren’t - we didget to present our Player of the Yearaward to Frank on the pitch before the

Deep from the Heart - Summer Tour Reflection

Notes from the Chairwoman

Continued on Page 9

PAGE 2

Any favorite memories from the tour?

The tour was tremendous. LA was greatin that we had a lot of participation inthe 5-a-side competition. The weatherwas great and we had a lot of good funat the respective bars. It was a goodbunch of people, as it was in all threecities. Baltimore was a little bit morelaid-back and we just had the Q&A andthe game to go to. Probably LA best,because it was geared toward meetingpeople ﬁrst of all and seeing them playfootball, and that was good fun. Allthree stadiums were very impressive,none more so than Dallas at the end,that was like the icing on the cake.

What was your impression of the USfans?

First of all, the amount - I just couldn'tbelieve how many there were. There wasa frightening amount of blue shirts atthe two games in LA and Baltimore. Wewere a little bit outnumbered in Dallas,but that was understandable consideringwhere we were in the country. I havenever ever seen so many Chelsea shirtsin a foreign country and that reallyimpressed me. It's a cliche, but it reallydid blow me away. I just couldn'tunderstand where all these people hadcome from and how they got the love of Chelsea Football Club. It's so nice for mebeing a Chelsea supporter as well as anex-player to see that support now beingblown apart all over the world. There'sbeen a lot of criticism aimed at theChelsea board for continually comingover to the States but I think it's bornefruit now because looking at what's goneon in the stadiums I was at, it'sunbelievable. The Chelsea following inthe States is second-to-none. That,combined with the expats, made for afantastic atmosphere.

How surprised were you at theknowledge of the club that the fansover here had?

I thought it was great. The enthusiasm,the way they wanted to enjoy the gamesand get into the atmosphere - I go toAmerican football games and it's notthere, there's a bit of banter but it's notthe singing that we were getting up to.Obviously, quite a few have been over tothe UK and seen it for their own beneﬁtsover here. They've read up on the historyof Jock and myself in particular andknew quite a bit about it, which wasnice. What they knew about ChelseaFootball Club generally and the playersand the sta

and the people involved inthe present-day, if that knowledge andenthusiasm can continue, Chelsea'spresence will be vast.

What would UK supporters ﬁnd mostamazing or startling about thesupport in America?

We're in our own little bubble atStamford Bridge, about 39,000 peoplewho love CFC there on a week-in, week-out basis at home. But to see thesupport we had in an 82,000 crowd inthe Rose Bowl was phenomenal - thatalone would blow their minds. Then theenthusiasm and the way they want tosupport the club and the players. Andthe knowledge they've got because yes,in the UK we're very football orientatedand expect American people to beinvolved with baseball, Americanfootball, basketball, and the generalknowledge of 99% of the fans there wasfantastic. It's the three things, really(number of fans, enthusiasm andknowledge) - UK fans would be amazedof those three things going on inAmerica.

So would you say the game's grownquite a bit since you played here?

I played at the end of the football era inTampa. Tampa was a dying ember - itwas very sparse and not veryatmospheric. That was 1989, I only hadthree months out there andunfortunately pulled my hamstring. Ithink the American people got suckedinto getting high-proﬁle old people outto play in the early 70s and 80s and theywere milked for money. They weregetting people more intent on buildingup their suntan as opposed to playingfootball. It's now been rekindled; theMLS has got stronger, Beckham's goneover, and I think it's better run andbetter organized ﬁnancially. And yes,David Beckham is probably the majorexception to the rule in the money thathe's earning. But I think the popularityand awareness, he's earned that in thoserights alone.

Any suggestions for where Chealseain America can go from here?

No, because you're doing a fantastic job.It was so well organized and there weresuch great people. Continue doing whatyou're doing - if it ain't broke, don't ﬁxit. I was speaking to Danny at the end of it, and he was saying to me that after theLA visit alone, there was another 300 or400 hits on the website. If you look at allthree bars we attended (well, weattended more than three bars whichwas fortunate!), we had a load of supporters there that weren't as awareof CFC as they are now. Keep spreadingthe word. It was so well-organized, itsurprised me. I spoke to Jock todayabout it, and we're absolutely stillgobsmacked. We just couldn't singenough praises for you out there.

What is your favorite Chelsea memory,as a player or as a supporter?

As a player, there's a couple - BeatingLiverpool at home in the FA Cup wasfantastic because they were championsof Europe at the time and we were ayoung side trying to ﬁnd our feet, sothat was a memorable day. Also theWolves game where I described the factthat there should be no crowd there, andwe turned up and the far end was allChelsea blue. We drew 1-1 and got the

The Legends (Tommy on the right) inPasadena, photo courtesy of Julie Carlson

TOMMY LANGLEY - CAREFREE IN THE USA

Chelsea Legend Tommy Langley was kind enough to agree to do a post-Summer Tourinterview for our Bluesletter. Thanks to Beth for conducting the interview!