DEEP FROM THE HEART

Notes from the Chairwoman

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 5MAY/JUNE 2010

CHAMPIONS CHAMPIONS CHAMPIONS -TWICE! Oh, the Double and how sweetwas that? All I can say is that I was luckyenough to be there and it was amazing!And not just the double, but a doubleplus a junior, as our U18 squad also wonthe FA Youth Cup (the ﬁrst time in 49years!)... so how unbelievable is that? Idid write a match report, and I haveposted all my photos. If you areinterested, you can look at them here:http://www.chelseainamerica.com/beths-excellent-adventure.html

The match report is long, so grab a mealand a drink before you sit down.http://community.webshots.com/user/texasblues1 for all the photos - over600 of them, so take your time.

So now we have the lazy days of summerto recover and get ready for the nextseason. But wait - lazy? Did I say lazy?No way, there is much going on. Forthose of you that follow theinternationals, we have the WORLD CUP.Fourteen Chelsea players are involvedand thanks to modern technology, I hearthat every match at the Cup will be on,so set your DVRs and soak it in. And yesthen there is that “famous” match justdays to go on the 12th of June. I justhope everyone enjoys it, and that all ourboys come home injury free. If thatwasn’t enough to keep you interested,we are in the midst of the silly seasonand just remember before you think wehave signed someone or you read/heard/whatever that someone has left,check the o

cial Chelsea website.Rumors are rife during the silly seasonand the papers are more ﬁction thanfact, so until you see it an o

cialstatement from the club, don’t believe it!

Of course there is no summer tour in theUS for Chelsea this summer, buthonestly I am not too bothered aboutthat as we saw a bout of injuries thatwere non-stop when they came overhere after the World Cup last time, sotake this time to enjoy the World Cup,enjoy your summer and get ready fornext season. We have two Cups todefend as well as looking to maybemake a bid for that silvery trophy withthe really big ears! And do you realizethat should we win the FA Cup againnext season, the three-peat on the FACup has not been done since the 19thCentury! And it wasn’t done by anyManc, Scouse or Gooner! Now wouldn’tthat be some kind of history (ﬁngerscrossed, knocking on wood)?!

We should have the CIA membership upand ready for people to sign up in thenext couple of days. Sorry for the delay,but we have made some major changesto the techy part of CIA - a new server,bigger and better than ever, some newsoftware to help us manage data betterand process applications better and allof that. It has taken a bit longer to get itall installed. So please bear with us whilewe ﬁnish that last bit of testing andinstallation. We will let you all knowwhen it is ready. And just so you know,we are keeping membership dues at thesame price as last season, so $8 forAdults, $4 for Youth members, $20 forfamilies (with maximum of 2 Adults). Wealso have a wonderful membership giftup our sleeves. So along with supportingall we do at CIA, your membership dueswill get you a great gift, which I amkeeping as a surprise, HA HA! I thinkeveryone will like it, as I hope you allliked the special DVD from last season.But that isn’t all. When you become amember of CIA, you help us build thelargest supporters club not only inAmerica but in the world. We are makingour voice heard at headquarters andthey are listening.

After quite a few years of trying to

Beth with some of the Youth team after the Wigan match, photo submitted by Beth Wild

continued on Page 2

•Notes from theChairwoman•Photos from theDallas Cup•Tales from theChampions•CIA Celebrates the Double inPhotos•FA Cup MatchReport•5 QuestionsFor...•Summer TourDVD Review•Malouda: AReconsideration

PAGE 2

CONTRIBUTORS:

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

explain what our vision is for CIA, wehad a great meeting with the club andare going a step forward. For the ﬁrsttim,e we will have not only CIA be arecognized club but also all of our largerregional and local clubs. What does thatmean? It means that every local/regionalclub will have the opportunity to becomea recognized supporters club of ChelseaFC without having to deal with all thehassle and paperwork of being ano

cial club. No need to collect dues andreport your ﬁnancials, no reporting of members and True Blue members, noworking on getting tickets, all of thatwill be centralized through CIA, so thatthe regionals/locals can spend the timeworking on growing our numbers andmaking the local/regional clubs exactlywhat the local/regional clubs want to beand do - all the fun and not the hassle.A local/regional group qualiﬁes byhaving at least 20 CIA members andelecting a contact person for CIA andChelsea. With that, that club will befeatured as an o

cial club on theChelsea website with a link to yourwebsite (which we can now host on thebig new CIA server for no cost!), and youhave the opportunity to have your clubﬂag hanging permanently at StamfordBridge as you have seen on television!CIA is going to try and fund those ﬂagsfor all the clubs as well. How cool is allof that? I know it has taken some time,but we are moving forward. So if youwant to support this, then here is whatyou need to do: sign up for CIA andsupport your local/regional club. If youdon’t know who they are or how to getinvolved, they will be contacting you, Ipromise. If you really want to step out,then o

er to work on your region orlocal club. All you have to do is contactme and I will get you going,beth.wild@chelseainamerica.com. That isall there is to it, and we want to grow toas many groups as possible! So don’t beshy; as we say, GET STUCK IN!

That isn’t all. For years I have tried toexplain to Chelsea that the True Bluemembership has little value, if any, toour members unless they feel they canmake it to the Bridge for a match. Andwe have our ﬁrst real US beneﬁt! Thisyear if you become a True Blue member,you GET CHELSEA PLUS FOR FREE!Chelsea Plus is the online broadcast of Chelsea TV! So if you have been missingChelseaTV on Setanta, wait no further!Now, with your True Blue membershipnot only do you get access to matchtickets, (your CIA membership alonecannot do that for you) you getChelseaTV streaming to your computer.Even better, they are now getting tolaunch a whole new driver forChelseaPlus, and it will o

er not onlyaccess across platforms to PC and Macusers both, but also it will be on-demand! How sweet is that? So if theshow you really love is on while you areat work, you will be able to pull it up on-demand when you get home, on theweekend or whenever you like.ChelseaPlus cost 39 pounds last yearand is 3.99 pounds a month if yourenew monthly, and the True Bluemembership was 25 pounds last year, soyou get both this year for only 30pounds for an adult. I guess what I amsaying is if you needed a reason tobecome a True Blue member andsupport Chelsea and CIA, I don’t knowhow they could give you a morecompelling reason to sign up. Also, if you should sign up before the 31st of July you will gain 5 loyalty points; if youare thinking of attending one of thosebig matches, or maybe the last match of the season, you need those loyaltypoints. Five loyalty points will get you aticket to any match, (not counting Semi-Finals, Finals and away ChampionsLeague matches) no matter who we play.

And just to clarify, being a member of CIA is important! As I said, it helpssupport the growth of Chelsea as theclub sees it. They measure support bythe number of supporters clubs andtheir members. However, the CIAmembership alone does not get youaccess to tickets. A True Bluemembership gets you access to matchtickets. When you pair the two of themtogether, that is the best of both worlds.Because as a supporters club we get toorder our members’ tickets prior tothem going on general sale to regularmembers, which makes it easier on youto be assured of getting the ticket youwant. You can only order one ticket perTrue Blue membership through us, so if you want to take the family, they willeach need a membership. But isn’t thatbetter than having to pay through thenose from a ticket agency or travel ﬁrm?I know we had a couple of families goover last season, and they were thrilled

continued from Page 1continued on Page 3

with their seats, the ease of gettingtickets and how less costly it was thanwhat they had found on the internetbefore discovering CIA. Junior True Bluememberships are even less expensive.So there you have it! If you have anyquestions, again, you only have to ask.And be sure that when you do sign upfor CIA that you tell us your True Bluenumber so that we can register you andhelp you with those tickets.

How exciting is that? Like I said, thebigger we get the more our voice isheard, so please support us supportingyou. Become a member of CIA and getyour True Blue membership; it has valuenow even if you aren’t going to theBridge!

Now that the season has ended andmost of our paperwork is done andturned in to Chelsea, we nearly have ourmembership page up and working. Wethought it would be nice to see if anyoneis interested in getting some CIA shirts if they missed the opportunity lastsummer and also their very own CIAﬂag. I will let everyone know when I getthe details on that. We will also behaving a ra

e for the signedmerchandise we get from Chelsea aswell, so be on the lookout for details.

Don’t forget to check out the old andnew episodes of both the regular CIApodcast and Legend podcasts. Don’tforget the great contests on Twitter, soplease follow CFCinAmerica. Of coursethere is also the website, numerousFacebook pages, and the bulletin boardto keep your summer ﬁlled with Chelsea.If you want to get more involved, let meknow. There is much more we could bedoing if we have the manpower.

I also wanted to give you an update onone of our members. Dean Kelley, asmany of you know, was in an horriblecar accident a few months back. It wasquite scary, but he is ﬁnally out of hospital. He is o

the respirator andeating on his own now, though he is stillin a wheelchair. Though he is fightingmightily, he has a long way back toregain the mobility of his arms and legs,but knowing Dean, he will be fightingharder than anyone. We have beenrunning a page to allow people to makea donation to Dean’s cause, because as Iam sure you can imagine the costs of this are many. To date we have raised$1,824.93 for Dean, but it doesn’t stop.He will need help for some time tocome. So if you forgot or ran out of timeor didn’t even know about it, our “Eidur”needs our help, so please give what youcan and know it is going to helpsomeone that is a fantastic supporter of Chelsea and a very dear person. You canfind the link to the donation site herehttp://www.chelseainamerica.com/ShoppingCarts/DeanKelly.htm You mightalso like to know that the money wasraised from donations from members aswell as a donation from CIA funds to thisgood cause. We also were able to sendDean some flowers, a box of goodieswith some shirts and one of our signedteam balls, Jens and I put together a carepackage to Dean of some mementosfrom the time I was in London, and bestof all our lovely Mick from PhoenixAutographs made a donation of something very special for Dean. Sorry Ican’t tell you more, but the box is in thepost to Dean, and I would hate to spoilthe surprise should he read this before itgets to him. But I will give all the detailson the thread on the board when I knowthe box has arrived.

I would also like to make you all awareof a special thing one of our members isdoing. Monique, who does a lot for CIA,is dedicating herself to doing the three-day walk for Breast Cancer Research. Iam sure, and sad, that most of us havebeen touched by this and lost friends orloved ones to breast cancer. Please, if you can ﬁnd a few extra dollars aroundto support Mo in her walk that would bewonderful. You can ﬁnd her donationpage at http://tinyurl.com/ybw5hk5 Anyand all donations are gratefullyaccepted, and remember it is for a veryworthy cause. If you are doingsomething that raises money for charity,please let us know. We are one big Bluefamily here and the generosity of thisgroup of people is mind-blowing. We aremore than just a group of crazy peoplethat wake up at silly times of themorning to watch a team and drink beer,we are a group of people with manydi

erent interests and hearts as big asthey get, so let us know what you are upto and maybe we can help.Let me end by wishing you all a very Bluesummer, enjoy your family and friends,and KEEP THAT BLUE FLAG FLYING HIGH!

continued from Page 2

DALLASCUP 2010

Photos by Beth WildPAGE 3