Once a Chelsea poster boy, Frank Lampard's tenure hangs by a thread

Gerry Cox has seen 20 Chelsea managers come and go in just over 30 years. That number could rise soon if reports of Frank Lampard's imminent defenestration pan out

Chelsea manager Frank Lampard: Future is uncertain after a poor run of form Picture:  Michael Regan

In the first 62 years of their existence, Chelsea football club appointed eight managers. In the past 30 years or so, since I started covering the Blues in 1989, they have made 20 appointments, not including short-term caretaker managers, and I have seen them all come and go.

The first in my experience was Bobby Campbell, the wise-cracking Scouser who once mocked me as a young reporter because I was wearing a luxurious looking overcoat, compared to his club issue manager's jacket. “You must be earning more than me, lad,” he laughed in front of the assembled media. I wasn't being paid much, but nor was he, in the days before the Premier League and the multi-millionaires and billionaires that came with it.