The game I loved so well

IN more ways than the merely geographical, it might seem like a long way from the Brandywell to Stamford Bridge but visits to Derry and west London in close succession last weekend underlined the pleasantly surprising extent to which football can shrink the world.

Derry was your correspondent’s first port of call for the top of the table clash against visitors Cork City. The homely Brandywell was buzzing, surpassed in its output of sustained energy only by the efforts of the Candystripes themselves who, right from the kick-off, set about their visitors as though their life in the league depended on it. Which, with the threat of Cork extending their lead at the top to nine points, it probably did.

And Derry’s massive effort got what it deserved - a 3-1 victory which closed the gap at the top of the table to just three points and erased any possibility that the championship might become a one-horse race.

Later in The Oak, a popular fans’ watering hole, officials of Derry City mingled with local fans and visiting supporters in an atmosphere of celebration, commiseration and mutual beery respect.

“We love you Derry, we do,” chanted a division of the Rebel Army, as they were applauded out of the pub by local supporters.

Cork City manager Damien Richardson has previously spoken of the “provincial” ties which bind the two clubs from opposite ends of the island.

Perhaps they also recognise in each other that one town-one club mentality which makes for a particularly passionate support.

But they are also glued together by something else: it may seem like a case of stating the bleedin’ obvious but Cork and Derry aren’t Dublin. This was sharply brought home to yours truly - a citizen of the real, real capital - as the rival fans in The Oak found a united voice in the night’s most popular chant: “No Dubs in Europe, there will be no Dubs in Europe.”

It seemed like a good moment to just smile serenely and keep my gob shut.

Forty-eight hours later, I’m in another city and another football ground for another Big Two clash. This time the venue is Stamford Bridge, the occasion the meeting of Premiership giants Chelsea and Arsenal. On the face of it, the dear old Brandywell seems to belong to a different era, not just a different league.

Roman Abramovich may be the money machine now driving Chelsea on and off the pitch but it was mad old Ken Bates’ dream which turned the falling down Bridge into the high-tech Chelsea Village with its hotels and bars.

The logo of sponsors Samsung is everywhere: on the blue plastic bowlers being given away free outside the ground and on the all-blue stilt-walkers who bend down to glad-hand the kids and lend the scene a vaguely naff Disneyland feel. It’s the new world of football as corporate and family entertainment, and the Chelsea Headhunters need no longer apply.

Romantics may scoff but for the hard-pressed hack this football tourism phenomenon has its advantages. For example, you only have to walk 50 yards from the press box in the West Stand to get to your hotel room, where you open your door with an electronic Chelsea pass card, switch on the box to watch Chelsea TV and select from the fruit bowl a banana emblazoned with the Chelsea crest from the on-site Chelsea organic farm. (Oh, alright, I made the last bit up).

This may be Chelsea reduced to a corporate brand but, for all the surface sheen, you still don’t have to dig too deep find a football club with roots in the community as real and enduring as those of Derry or Cork.

It all comes back to the fans, like the returning emigrant in the press box who now represents a Canadian football magazine, but who grew up more than half a century ago less than 100 yards from the old ground. Or the middle-aged autograph hunter outside the main reception entrance who almost expires with excitement when he spots Frank Lampard senior - father of Chelsea’s current player of the year - arriving with his family for the game.

The bearded Frank obliges by adding his name to the bulging book, a life’s work which contains hundreds of signed photos of football stars past and present. The autograph hunter, who was clearly already active ‘round these parts when Osgood was good, is a man on a mission. Today’s quarry is Charlie Cooke but the former Stamford Bridge crowd-pleaser is as elusive in retirement as he did on the wing back when he was the 70s version of the wizard Duff.

The friendly assistance of the club’s press office; the genuinely warm welcome for John ‘Motty’ Motson when he turns up to do his thing for the Beeb; the ageing autograph hunter still looking at the world through little boys’ eyes - all small, individual things, perhaps, but reminders that the essential soul of football still survives even in the highly commercialised atmosphere of the new millennium Premiership.

Chelsea’s Shed may now just be that in name only but when the whistle blows, what unfolds on the pitch is the same game as the one that’s played out in front of its more rough and ready namesake in Turner’s Cross or in the low bowl of the Brandywell.

For all that separates the football teams of Derry and Cork from those of west and north London, they still have the most important things in common: 11 against 11 and the game of two halves.

But at least in Stamford Bridge they seem to have nothing against the Dubs.

Yet.