And that’s where these two lovely Chelsea fans – Amanda and Ossie – have volunteered to mobilise funds for these charities. They are gonna do it by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. And you know what, they are gonna plant the Chelsea flag right on top of the mountain.

And they need our help – the help of Chelsea fans. And they need the help and support of the BlueChampions community here. I know this blog is being visited and read by thousands everyday – through the website and through the feed readers. This blog goes out to all those in the BlueChampions community – including the 1300 people that follow me on Twitter. First, let’s see who Amanda and Ossie are and why they’re doing it.

Amanda sits in the editorial of the superb Miss-SW6.com – probably the only Chelsea website run by women. This charity effort matters a lot to Amanda as she has gone through a personal tragedy which she wants to prevent for others as much as she can.

My inspiration to climb came on 8 July 2011 when I found out that my brother had passed away. It was hard enough to deal with losing such a close family member but knowing it was because he took his own life made it even harder for my family and myself.

Soon after finding out I left for London where I met up with Ossie and he told me of his aspirations to climb Kilimanjaro in the summer of 2012. I immediately thought that it would be the perfect opportunity to climb for a cause, my brother and the memory of his life.

I decided that the climb would be for him and my family so I decided that the funds I raised for the climb would be put toward the International Association for Suicide Prevention. This climb combined quite a few loves of mine so it was a perfect opportunity to raise awareness about such a difficult subject like suicide. I want to raise awareness for the signs of suicide as well as remember, not only my brother, but also all of the people that have been affected by suicide.

The climb also allowed me the opportunity to mark Kilimanjaro as Chelsea territory. My brother and I went to our local pub here in Southern California to cheer on the Blues a few times and he loved it. This climb is the perfect combination of Chelsea and family inspiration. We will be summiting on the 8th of July 2012, the one-year anniversary of my brother’s death. I want to celebrate his life and how full of life he truly was when he was here with us.

My brother Christopher is my inspiration to climb and as a Chelsea supporter I could see no better way.

Ossie (how could we not help someone by that name!) is the man with the plan. He’s climbed mountains and peaks before for charity. Even in those peaks, Ossie had hoisted the blue flag! In that effort, he had raised £2500 for Save the Children, with a significant amount of money donated by Chelsea supporters around the world. Ossie says:

I have been a Chelsea season ticket holder (Gate 17) for years and I have seen the whole KTBFFH build over the years. As we have become more successful, both the flags and the song have become more prominent around both the Bridge & Wembley, as the trophies have rolled in. I’ve always loved it.

I decided to take my flag on my 3 Peaks challenge and all my sponsorship material had a couple of old “flag” photos in it. I started to get requests from Chelsea fans saying they would sponsor me (extra in some cases) if I had photos at the top of each Peak with the flag.

One night I received support from Miss SW6 not just in terms of a donation, but by posting my challenge onto the their site and their vast network of Chelsea contacts primarily in the USA. Almost overnight this raised several hundred of £s from people whom I had never met but had a common interest – Chelsea – and they all wished me well and included KTBFFH.

So that was it – KTBFFH Kilimanjaro 2012.

So the challenge has the KTBFFH theme and I am now securing help from within the club in many ways, as well as having made a flag 10ft x 5ft that I will proudly fly to claim Chelsea territory at the roof of Africa on July 8th.

I cant wait.

I would request you all to support the KTBFFH 2012 challenge generously or as much as you can. Amanda and Ossie are upto something challenging and amazing that I would anyway be keen to support – whether they support Chelsea or even if they were to plant an Arsenal flag on the mountain peaks. This is a cause that we should all unite for and be supportive – either through donating money or simply through spreading the word.

Ossie and Amanda are a great inspiration for people who want to contribute to the society that they take a lot from. I admire their courage and determination to help improve the society most people would stop at just complaining about. I wish them all the best and I’m sure they would be highly successful with their KTBFFH 2012 challenge.

Please click this link to visit their website and read more on the climbing challenge and to make a donation that you can always be proud of. Click the below image (Ossie with the Captain, Leader, Legend) to make a donation.

Keep The Blue Flag Flying High – We say it. Only Ossie and Amanda will do it. And they will do it on our behalf. Let’s help them!

Do you know that 80% of the blogs are abandoned within the first month? And that the average lifespan of a blog is only 4 months? So if this blog has turned 5 years, it’s quite special and we should be extremely proud for nurturing and growing it. In the last 5 years, there have been numerous challenges that have threatened the existence of the blog. It has survived all these tests because you have continued to come back and support through its good and bad times.

Maintaining BlueChampions Blog has always been a pleasure for me but then it does get challenging by the day with progression in my career and family. No matter how casual it is, writing a few paragraphs does need some time and focus – both are at a premium now for me. But trust me when I say that the blog will go on – as regularly as it used to be.

Though I haven’t been active on internet but have been watching the Chelsea games. Last week I was in London. I was keen to see the Chelsea vs Man City game at the Bridge. But it was so cold that I feared that I could fall sick and I didn’t want that on my work-related travel. Saw the match in a pub and as always I was the lone Chelsea supporter but that didn’t stop me from my pump-fisting, incident-applauding and yesss-yelling.

Thought it was a very good game. You can see that when this Chelsea team decides to drop deep, they are so hard to beat and they have so much to gain. Against Valencia and Man City, it was bloody obvious that the depth of our defensive line made a telling difference. Having seen us play Valencia that way, I kinda expected AVB to play against Man City the same way. We just couldn’t risk losing that game.

By the way, below are couple of my very relevant tweets on the Man City game:

Before the match:

Back in 2004-05, the team that stood between Chelsea and an unbeaten league season was Man City. Fast fwd to 2011-12. You know the rest.

After the match:

What did I say? Arsenal beat Chelsea. Man Utd beat Arsenal. Man City beat Man Utd. Chelsea will beat Man City to complete a full circle!

I couldn’t see the Wigan vs Chelsea game as I was in the flight. Got to see the highlights later. When you drop points like that in an away match, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for AVB. The guy has been giving his best. Of course, he’s made some mistakes but you can’t doubt his commitment or passion. It’s not great going. That’s for sure. Having shown the league that Man City can be beaten, we should have finished off Wigan. That would have made today’s Man City vs Arsenal game quite interesting. We could have had a chance of being only 4 points away from Man City. After the game tonight, we could be at worst 9 under par.

What is my preferred result today? Anything but a Man City win. Yes, that includes a painful Arsenal win too. For the greater good of the season, I don’t mind Arsenal winning this game. But then, I’m okay with a high scoring draw too – the one where Arsenal go 4-0 up in the first half and concede four in the second half with a stoppage time equaliser. That would be something.

Meanwhile, the champions league draw happened. While all the group toppers were looking to avoid two teams – Napoli and Milan – we got one of them. It’s going to be a really tough tie. Napoli could beat any of these champions league contenders (barring Barcelona and Real Madrid who are in a separate ultimate league). Topping the group means we would get to play the second leg in Stamford Bridge and that’s a plus. I expect to see Barcelona, Lyon, Benfica, Milan, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Bayern and Marseille in the quarter finals.

Before I wrap this one up, few words on my whereabouts. One sure shot way of reaching me is Twitter. I’m almost ALWAYS on Twitter. So reach out to me @bluechampion if you’re on Twitter and want to ping me or check my tweets. Catch you soon! Cheers!

As far as BlueChampions goes, the need for social networking always exists. We, the writers, readers and contributors of the blog are spread all over the world. As you’re aware, I’ve made a few attempts to integrate this community and get the best out of it. With some of the changes that Facebook have made recently, it certainly is the best ready-made option for this purpose.

From a BlueChampions point of view, you know that I’m all into twitter. I’m just loving it. But I’ve always wanted to have a facebook page for BlueChampions. I’ve had several attempts to create a facebook page for the Blog. Being an Apple afficianado, I find setting up stuff on facebook to be a cumbersome process as my demands and expectations were high. Too many questions and too few answers. Anyways, finally, after all these struggles, BlueChampions Blog is now on Facebook.

Here is the link for the BlueChampions Blog. It would be nicer if this is a smartlink right? As per Facebook regulations, this page needs to have at least 25 fans before we get a www.facebook.com/bluechampionsblog address. I’m sure we can reach this figure fairly quickly, with your help. Right now, it’s liked by only one person and that’s me.

UPDATE: Thanks to you guys! We got past the required number of ‘likes’ within an hour so here is the smartlink – http://www.facebook.com/bluechampion.

The BC Facebook link is right up there in top menu bar in the blog now. So, you don’t need to store this long boring weblink until we get a smartlink. Visit the blog, click on ‘BC Facebook’ on the menu bar and you’ll be in the BlueChampions Community on Facebook. I’d be looking for admins for the facebook page. That’s for later though.

With my incredible iPhone 4, I’m always on Twitter and Facebook. I’ve still not managed to link my Facebook page and Twitter. Anyways, that should happen soon. I’m looking to update facebook through direct updates and also through my tweets.

So the facebook page is the fourth dimension, after (a) the BlueChampions blog, (b) blogging on the official website (c) Twitter. With all these things, I must say that the BlueChampions Blog has found a definite place on the social media network. Catch you there!

It gives me goosebumps to find my name, photo and blog in a space that’s frequented by Chelsea FC players, staff and coaching staff. It is similar to the feeling I got when I was in the Chelsea dressing room as part of my stadium tour a couple of years back. I was thinking, on a different day, Lampard, Terry and Mourinho could have been right there with me. It was such a thrilling feeling.

The day when I registered the domain name www.bluechampions.com, did I think that I’ll feature in the official website one day? No way. But I always knew why online communities are important and how their voice can be heard. Many times, in this very blog, I have talked about how significant these fan forums such as blogs and discussion boards are.

It’s natural that some of you might wonder if this will have an impact on my blogging in BlueChampions. Yes, you’ll have a more proud blogger on the key board. Some might wonder how will this change my style of blogging (will I become more politically correct?). There will only be positive changes. I’ll continue exactly the same way as I have so far, when it comes to expressing my thoughts and opinions.

The club loves to hear from the fans and supporters. They want to know what we feel about the club and the blue revolution. We will only help the cause by being honest and open. To invite the Chelsea bloggers to share some space in the official website is a great indication of how much the fan communities are valued by the club. There’s no two ways about it.

Most important part of this post now. Here are the links of the post and that of my bio. Here is the link to my first post – Who would have thought?. And here’s the link to my profile there. Pardon me for the pretentious look on the picture. Would love to see the BC folks get in there and show your support by adding your tuppence. I’m sure you’ll do.

My sincere thanks to Luca Massaro (Digital Marketing Analyst, Chelsea FC) who is the main man behind all this. He’s been extremely patient and supportive. It’s been great to know him and work with him. I’m sure this new relationship with him and Chelsea FC would continue and get stronger.

Finally, I must say I never thought I’d get to share the stage with Michael Essien. Note that I’m a few notches above him there (thanks to the alphabetical listing)!!

London’s very cold this week. The temperature is in the region of about 6 degree celsius. It’s clear that my protective clothing will do no good in the Stamford Bridge stance at 8pm in the evening. I’ll leave office early and would pick up a cheap but decent coat that need to keep me alive to write my experiences at the Bridge.

I’d also get my dark away jersey tomorrow. I’ve already seen a few wearing that. It looks great. I’d get a few memorabilia stuff too. There’s this miniature of Stamford Bridge that I’ve got my eye on. Not sure if I’d buy it in this trip. It’s expensive and can be a challenge to carry. Let’s see.

I’m planning to get there very early so (i) I just don’t allow myself to be late, even if the sky falls down (ii) I can let the excitement build up and enjoy ‘being there’ (iii) I can watch the pre-match warm up and such stuff. I’m really confident that we would win tomorrow.

The weekend was just perfect. We beat Aston Villa 3-0 with three very good goals while Man Utd dropped points against Blackburn. Nothing’s over yet but certainly Man Utd are falling apart. They have a very good team and a great manager but the disappointment of the last couple of weeks would certainly be a setback for them in the title race.

Hoping for a big win for Chelsea tomorrow. Hopefully it’s a 4-0 or 5-0 with a hattrick from Malouda. I’d love that.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t watch the match as ESPN went off sharp 15 mins before the match. Then I realised that it is an issue being faced by many in India for the last few days. I was only going by the BBC updates and the numerous text messages sent across by my cousin. Purely based on his (he is a Chelsea fan, of course) text messages, I’d say that we had a poor first half filled with nervy defending and purposeless attacks. The second half showed some promise and we should have certainly won with the number of chances we created. Drogba was invisible and lazy until the free kick goal which was taken even before the wall was ready. Overall, the score did reflect the match. Both of us were disappointed but Man Utd will also drop points, you’ll see them do it big time, trust me.

Fergie and Wenger must be quite pleased with this result. This might even have given a ray of hope for Wenger. In a way this result helps as we don’t go to the Arsenal with complacency. With a great opportunity to extend the lead being squandered, Chelsea must know that they need to be on top of their game to ‘batter’ Arsenal and regain and extend the lead. Okay then, let’s wait for Karma CW’s first ever post in BlueChampions then!

I do see some new visitors arriving at BlueChampions from ESPNStar. If you’re one of them, warm welcome to this Chelsea community. Take your tour of this little blog. Let me help you there a bit. If you want to know who am I and how I became a Chelsea fan, read this page. If you want to read some of those 750+ posts on this blog, check out the archives. If you want to get in touch with me, it’s here. As you’ve made out by now, the menu bar would take you to various important links of the BlueChampions Community.

That’s it for now. Take care!

The balance of Roman’s interest-free loans to Chelsea to the extent of over 300 million pounds has now been converted into equity capital. What this means is that Chelsea is now practically debt-free. Chelsea is more debt-free than most top clubs in Europe. UEFA are certainly tightening the noose on the multi-million acquisitions of European clubs by the billionaire owners. We know how much UEFA loves Chelsea. I’m sure they’ll make up rules in such a way Chelsea gets seriously disadvantaged. This is a fantastic response from Roman to UEFA’s proposed rules and regulations. Now Roman tells them, ‘okay, we’re debt-free, now what?’.

We’re lucky to have an owner like Roman Abramovich – he loves football, he loves the club ands he wants and is committed to the financial stability for the club. Some rival fans would die for such an owner for their club. Let’s begin this wonderful year by thanking Roman Abramovich for his love and commitment towards the club.

Once again, wish you all a very fantastic year ahead. May this be the most successful year in the history of Chelsea FC. I do have some minimum requirements from this year. When we end the year 2010, I’d like to see certain things:

1. We should have won either the premier league or the champions league. This is in addition to the FA Cup, Community Shield and the Club World Cup that I might want us to win.

2. We should have still have Ancelotti in charge of Chelsea. Let’s put our faith in Carlo Ancelotti and support him as much as possible than finding annual replacements for the role of manager at Chelsea FC.

3. Our young players must have become first team regulars. Names like Kakuta, Matic, Borini, Sturridge etc must be household names and they should be known as the next Ronaldo, Lampard, Gerrard, Zola, Drogba, Torres of the premier league.

4. Rafa Benitez and Arsene Wenger should still be in charge of Liverpool and Arsenal respectively or vice versa. Actually, the vice versa bit sounds very impressive for me. Basically, I want these people to remain in charge because otherwise they might get more ambitious managers.

5. Jose Mourinho should not have taken the reins at Man Utd. Let him not take that role. JM at Man Utd sounds like a perfect marriage as he could start another trophy wave for them. Let him go to Spain.

6. You could add the rest . . .

My laptop recovery or the replacement is not going to happen any time soon. So, these’s going to be some tremendous inactivity in the blog except for these litte mobile-blogged pieces. I hope to be active in the BC HUDDLE. Let’s catch up there!

P.S: I’ve been playing FIFA 10 for a week now. The game’s just fantastic. I’m really enjoying this while hoping that PES still beats this one :-)

Chelsea Forum: I hope you know how a forum works. It’s just a discussion board. A blog is all about the latest article. It could be on a certain topic. In the world of football, there are always about a dozen live topcis to discuss on. It is quite difficult for a blog to keep up with all the happenings in the world of football. Primarily because, that’s not what a blog is all about. The post in a blog is always about someone’s views or opinions about one or a few things and the idea is not to talk about everything that happens in football. There could always be various things that you want to talk about but would look out of topic to discuss that under a certain blog post. Also, the updation and its frequency of a blog is with the individual who runs the blog. I might not update the blog one day because I felt too sleepy. That should not be a deterrent for discuss football matters here with your bunch.

This is where a forum fits in beautifully. BC Huddle has multiple categories such as Chelsea matches, non-Chelsea matches, football debates, news and rumours, fantasy league, football games etc. This makes it very easy for you to be able to discuss multiple football matters at the same time. In a blog, you have a certain people with two horns and only they get to post articles while the rest can only comment on/under the articles. In a discussion board, you all can grow two horns. Anyone can create a topic or thread or an article. Everyone is a writer as well as a contributor in a discussion board. Among other things, you can also create polls under the threads you create. Also, you could be creating threads in some categories while responding to other threads in some other categories. As you’d have figured out, forums can be very dynamic.

The other important thing about BC Huddle is that it is a Chelsea community. When I say it’s a community what I mean is, there are various tools and features that can maintain this group as a very organised community. First up, there is a profile page for each and every fan there. Once you sign up, in your profile page, you can pretty much write your own autobiography with some key details that any fellow fan would like to know about you.

Also, just like in Orkut and other such networking sites, in BC Huddle, you can create your own groups and have people join these groups. No surprise to you – I have created a group called ‘All hail the special one’, which is a group for all Jose Mourinho fans. Similarly, you can create your own groups where you can share messages, pictures and stuff.

There is also a member list which has the full list of all BC Huddle members along with their post count. From there too, you can click the member name and see his/her complete profile that includes detailed information such as the list of all threads and posts made the member. Also, you can add members to your contact list. You can also add them to your friends list after mutual acceptance through friend requests. You can send private messages to those who are added as friends in your contact list.

Did I tell you about the albums and galleries? Each one of you can have your own albums where you can add images which may or may not be viewed by the rest of the members. Isn’t this something some of you always wanted to see here? Gives me an opportunity to put all my Stamford Bridge images!

We will have multiple moderators in the forum. Some of you could be the moderators. When I say moderation, it does not mean what you post will be held. All threads and posts will be published as soon as you hit submit. What the moderators would do is, check the published stuff to see if there are anything objectionable. If there are, they would give you a ‘yellow card’ that would carry a certain ban on viewing or posting or both and a ‘red card’ if there is a need. Only moderators will be able to see the yellow/red card under each member’s name.

Each member also has a ‘user title’ which is a result/indication of how many posts has s/he made. Every member starts with the title ‘Chelsea fan’. After 50 posts, you’d become a ‘Chelsea supporter’. After 250 posts, you’d join the ‘Chelsea academy’. After 1000 posts, you move to the ‘Chelsea reserves’. You need to do 2000 posts to make it to the ‘Chelsea bench’. And then once you hit 5000 posts, you’ll finally get a chance to be a ‘Chelsea player’. To be ‘Chelsea starter’, you gotta hit 7500 posts. Once you complete a milestone of 10000 posts, you’re the ‘Chelsea captain’. It’s not over yet. When you cross 15000, you truly become a ‘Chelsea icon’. Once you touch 25000 posts, man, you’re ‘Chelsea legend’ and you stay that way for the rest of your BC Huddle life!

That’s about the user title. There is also something called the user reputation. The reputation does not have anything with the number of threads or posts. It’s just like the karma thingy we had earlier. If someone liked your post they add some reputation points to you. If you hurt someone or abuse, your reputation might take a hit.

What about the bread and butter? Yes, you create threads like nobody’s business. You can create threads based on some news item, some rumour, some observation you made, some piece of opinion or some something or the other. You can also subscribe to certain threads that you find interesting and are keen to follow. That shows up in your control panel. Check out all the links on the top in the navigation bar and also on the side bar. Anything that you want to change about yourself as a member is done from ‘your control panel’ that you see on the sidebar.

There is a calendar as well on the top navigation bar. I intend to update the calendar with Chelsea fixtures and other events that could be of interest to us. There is a fantastic ‘search’ function as well. If you want read all the thread and/or posts with the term ‘penalty’, you could just do that. The ‘new posts’ link just lists down those posts that were published since your last visit and now.

Back to the sidebar. I’ve put a list of key links to some of the most common websites that we might use on a daily basis as a Chelsea fan and a football fan. As of now, it has almost all the links that you might want. I will pdate it with some more in due course. If you get any doubt about any of the features, just hit the FAQ button under the header logo. There is a very comprehensive and neat list of all possible questions that you might have. The link of BC Huddle in this blog is right under the header and navigation bar. I intend to leave it there that way, if you were struggle for the link.

So that’s pretty much your lot. I could have missed a few things in this post. If you start using BC Huddle, you’ll realise that there are a lot of stuff in there that is more fun as long as we have more people using it. This, I think, is the first step in creating that BlueChampions community. Get in & enjoy!