Jamie Shoesmith is currently away.

If your club ain't broke, don't fix it

Before I take in the second part of my journey in to the claret wilderness, it’s time to do a quick summer stocktaking on the team I originally started supporting back in 1994. United had just put four past Chelsea at Wembley. I’m still glad I chose the losing team on that fateful Cup Final day.

For all the usual schtick about Chelsea’s spending, this summer’s ‘spree’ has been, if I may be so crude, like that cruellest of farts…silent, but deadly. The signing of Florent Malouda was a promising move – early speculation suggests that this may be similar to the headhunting of Michael Essien, whose fee seemed tenuous at first through lacklustre early performances for the blues along with a mass of spectators not really sure what to expect. Indications are through Arjen Robben’s fidgeting over signing a new contract is that Malouda may be a permanent fixture.

The thing is - as Mourinho has pointed out rather bluntly - that this signing is the first one this year where Chelsea have actually paid a fee. The club’s intentions to break even by 2009 have led to the somewhat vain hope that free-transfer captures will prove to pay dividend in the meantime. Claudio Pizzaro has the best chance to prove that theory right on recent performances win the Copa America, while Steve Sidwell seems to have everyone clamouring to the notion that he was better off as a big fish in a mediocre-sized pond at Reading. Messers Malouda and Alves (with the latter expected to sign imminently) have been the only two arrivals with price tags attached thus far.

Some may be surprised by the flurry of activity this year in the increasingly business-like transfer market; my housemate quite correctly identified the fact that you can’t hear Carlos Tevez’s name mentioned on any recent sports bulletin without the phrase ‘transfer saga’ mentioned in the same breath. However, it’s actually quite understandable for 2007 to be the year for all this commotion. World Cups are usually the time for the papers to make wild screams at spectacularly over-inflated transfer valuations on players based on one or two form performances for their country.

Following the rather forgettable World Cup last year and the dust finally settling on Italian match fixing scandal, clubs this summer (with the lack of any major competition in Europe apart from the U-21 Championships) have had the opportunity to be left to their own devices.

Liverpool have always held my admiration, and their recent takeover bears hallmarks of spending to the same level as Abramovich minus the initial outcry of cash-flashing arrogance. Spending at Merseyside has an edge of panache, with the new owners Gillett and Hicks making a point of camera-friendly appearances and attaching their heartstrings to the club very early on. The addition of Torres is a massive coup for a club in desperate need of a striker to recapture the league title in the same way John Aldridge and Ian Rush did back in their pomp.

Up the road in Salford, the accountants at United are having a field day. Last season seemed on the face of it to rely on the Rooney and Ronaldo show, but this is simply an urban myth – they were just the two key performers in an organized show of team discipline that took the Premiership crown back to Old Trafford. Now, with the addition of Hargreaves, Nani and Anderson, to say the squad is strengthened is an understatement. The coffers have been prised open, and once the Carlos Tevez transfer saga is resolved, spending will have hit £50 million. Will all these signings provide a slight unnerving in the United camp? Sorry for the rhetoric, but I wouldn’t doubt the Glazers had a hunch that spending this year at Stamford Bridge would be a bit leaner than previous seasons. We can but see.

Downsizing – Stamford Bridge to Sixfields (Part 1)

I still make a point of keep hold of my old Chelsea ‘keepers jersey. The black top bedecked with silver and green shoulder cross-stitch is perhaps closely identified by the smashed-down Times New Roman logo of Autoglass, the kind shirt sponsors of the time. The contrast between the current swish, sleek Samsung Mobile branding and the old-style top once worn by the moustachioed porn star of the football world himself, Ed de Goey, couldn’t make itself more apparent. Yet still the fearsome lion, in its old incarnation, adorns the CFC lettering on my old top.

I keep it – and wear it, when convenient – mostly as a personal reminder, but also a polite buffer to prevent the usual arguments that any Chelsea fan can encounter. Immediately, any fan of any club worth their salt will recall that Autoglass sponsorship era, 1997-2000. Ruud Gullit and Gianluca Vialli steered Chelsea to the cup, giving the league leaders a small nudge at their capability and, every so often, having flirtatious jaunt in to Europe.

Since the bankroll for the club has become a whole lot healthier than Mr. Bates’ era, I’m sometimes in a mind to carry a set of cue cards or script to be able to bat away any questions that come my way, usually loaded questions designed to look half-polite but . What used to be mild banter towards to underdog club has, at times, become a full-blown interrogation in to the financial dealings of Mr. Abramovich himself or whether I believe we ‘bought’ the title.

I should apologise; this sounds like an awfully tiresome supporter’s rant, bemoaning the curse that befalls any champions. It happened to Alex Ferguson’s ‘jammy’ United in the nineties, the notion that Jack Walker’s millions fluked the title to the Black Country. Even the glory days of Arsene Wenger at the turn of the millennium even has something that other fans just felt was…well…wrong.

Even so, the grace that once saw the homegrown talent of Paul Furlong and the mighty physical foreign talent of Erland Johnson are now replaced by the ruthless calculating brilliance of Jose Mourinho and the glory shower of silverware – but the fun of supporting Chelsea has now become a chore.

Two years ago, I met my now-flatmate Danny. Taking early second-guesses as to his back story, I was guessing that a big-time Premiership club would be seeing their colours draped across his back. Liverpool, maybe. Perhaps Villa – his veiled midlands accents was a dead giveaway. No, eventually I had it in my head he was a ManYoo lad, the glory-hunting fool.

I was meaning to ask which team he supports, but the answer came on a Sunday morning waking up on his couch, following a heavy night out of student merriment. Sunday morning wake-ups are reserved for the re-run of last night’s Match of the Day, so to be greeted (along with a steaming cuppa) to Championship and Football League highlights felt a little wrong - especially when Danny became a whole lot more attentive when Northampton Town were introduced. Something was afoot.