Away dressing room had to be ordinary. It can’t be better than the home dressing room. We just need to give those buggers a place to change their clothes, that’s it. No need for any fancy stuff there. That’s how it was in fact. It looked plain ordinary. Interestingly the closets in the away room was on the floor attached to the wall. It must be just a foot high which meant the away players had to bend down and up to use their closets. David said if they sprain a muscle in the process, so be it. Completely logical.

David also said that while Chelsea have made a good away dressing room, the away room at Anfield has a very slippery surface, which could be very dangerous for the players. In SB, the flooring in the away room was in a slip-proof texture. Though it was not too flashy I’m sure it served the purpose. Certainly, none of these tricks are to be credited for our historic home league run. All credit to our boys and staff.

Then the grand finale. We all came out of the away room to the verandah. That’s the one that connects the home and away dressing room. So when players come out of their respective rooms they end up in this verandah, which is what we fondly call as the ‘tunnel’. So we all lined up in the tunnel as if we’re gonna take the pitch. The PA system in the tunnel was simulating a real match noise effect. We could hear the roar of about 40,000 people out there waiting to see us. That was a smart idea. Also wearing a Ballack jersey made me feel lot better at that particular moment.

We marched on.As we came out of the tunnel which split the stadium right in the middle of the longer side of the rectangle, we see that we are walking towards the pitch. I just imagined for a moment how would it be, if there were really 40,000 people doubling their decibels as they saw me. Poor me. Lives in imagination all the time. Roll back to the day I started this blog. If someone told me that I would walk through the tunnel at Stamford Bridge towards the pitch, I’d have told him to have his head checked. But it was happening. As we got out of the tunnel, I could see that I’m just a few yards away from the pitch itself.

We were all supposed to assemble near advertisement boards, beyond which you have this lush green pitch. We did just that, I leaned on the ad board waiting for the next word from David. This cruel man jumped over the ad board right in front of my eyes and stood up on the pitch facing us. I was wondering, can I be a streaker for a moment please? David continued his upload of information about the pitch and the stadium. I asked him about how this pitch compared with the rest of the pitches in the league size-wise. He said only Old Trafford and Emirates have bigger sized pitches. Not bad. I asked Dave ‘where is that window with venetian blinds from where Roman watches the match’? Amused, he showed that very balcony where Roman stands and watches the games. Strange, he owns the club but he does not gets to sit in his own stadium.

Another session of frantic photography started. I knew that we were coming to the close of the tour. I had to click as many as possible and then probably choose the best. Thanks to digital photography and photoshop, I’m a renowned photographer in my circles. So that was it. I thought the tour kind of ended abruptly. I sure wanted that to prolong. I’m sure there were still a lot of things they could have shown us or I wanted to see. The Chelsea museum was closed during that period and that took away some share of the fun. We were all taken back inside the stadium and left in a path that led to the Chelsea megastore where I had spent many hours that day. If you think I didn’t shop again because of that, you’r wrong. I shopped again as if I was seeing it for the first time. And finally, reluctantly, I had to leave.

Having boarded the metro on my way back, I realised that, all through this episode of my stadium tour in Stamford Bridge, I did not tell anyone, including David, that I run this Chelsea fan blog called BlueChampions. May be, looking at Stamford Bridge I felt so small that it did not even strike me to reveal that. A club is such a massive institution, be it Chelsea or Stoke City or Milan or Macclesfield or whatever. It has such a big aura about it. Anyone walking in is bound to get lost in the sheer magnitude of the greatness and astonishment of the institution. For those few hours that’s what happened to me. I could have just slipped it to David about this but I simply didn’t. It simply wasn’t there on my mind at all.

I realise what I’ve written about this trip could sound a bit silly to those who visit the Bridge every fortnight. But believe me, being there for the first time, the ‘wow factor’ was unbeatable. I might visit the Bridge again and might even watch some matches but this trip was unforgettable for me. Watching a match at the Bridge for the first time could also be a fantastic day, when it happens, you’ll know right here at BlueChampions!

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