"Less a of bang than a whimper"

One of the abiding memories from my childhood is seeing an episode of Dr Who, where the Doc and his halfwit helpers visited a sinister planet and were brainwashed by the evil rulers into thinking that it was a beautiful world, inhabited by happy, laughing, carefree people, whereas the opposite was true - in reality the place was a dump, infested by dirty, disease-ridden zombies, who existed only to serve the corrupt rulers. This brainwashing was achieved by placing an electronic device on the forehead of the sleeping victim, so that, when they awoke, they would see only what the rulers wanted them to see.

Unfortunately for them, one of the Doc's halfwits had normal sleep patterns, and tended to turn over in the night, thus displacing the evil device. When she awoke the next morning, she alone saw the awful truth of what was going on around her. Are you getting my drift ? No ? Substitute the brainwashing device for a couple of pints of lager, then, and you'll begin to understand my meaning. I must have turned over during the night as well, because everything was not as I had been led to believe it was from the moment I got up at 8:30, right up until gone half past one.

We arrived at the Bridge by 10:45. Yes, 10:45. It was freezing cold, and the atmosphere was subdued. Seated in the east wraparound of the Shed upper, somewhere I've not been before, I was interested to see that we were directly above the cockneys in the Man U area, so I warmed myself up with some pithy banter with a couple of blokes who had grazed knuckles from walking to the ground from Fulham Broadway. "We're going to Wembley, you're not" received an appreciative ripple of applause from a few people (my mates) around me, and for a moment all was well with the world.

I was interested to note that there are two new scoreboards, one at either end of the ground, and that there are two huge floodlights sticking out of the uncompleted West stand. When I pointed this out to my so-called friends, they were hurtfully scornful at my failure to have noticed these things before. I got them back, though, by asking them "had they noticed that the bogs appear to have been constructed from breeze blocks, then ?" No, they hadn't noticed, but it's a fact. I'm one up on them, because I noticed the breeze block bogs last season when we had to play Arsenal at 11:00 in the morning.

By 11:15 the atmosphere was - subdued. The understandable apathy (given the time of day, lack of beverages, etc) from the crowd seemed to have infected the players as well, unfortunately. It pains me to admit it, but United seemed to have more passion for the game than we did, something I never expected to have to say, or want to say again.

The only exception was Dennis Wise, who was full of it all afternoon. If some of our imports had matched Den for sheer bloody-mindedness and obvious desire to win, we'd have killed United on Saturday, don't doubt it. That was one of the best displays I've ever seen from Den, he even got the crowd going for a bit. Needless to say, he got booked, after having put up with some the most violent unpunished clogging from the aptly-named Butt that you'll ever see. Admittedly Dennis had been sledging and baiting the little twat, but that is how football is played in this country. At least we don't gob in each others' ears like they do on the continent.

It's a bit worrying that people like Butt and Beckham (who also lost it big time and got booked) are seen as the backbone of the national team, and can't behave like professionals when subjected to a bit of stick that would be classed as amateur night in most other places in the world. And they'll get sent off in the World Cup for retaliation, not just booked. The trouble with that lot is that they're so used to having everything their own way that they haven't had to develop the character they need for when things are going against them. Defenders in the teams we're playing in the World Cup must be gleefully rubbing their hands together as they practise accidentally raking shins, treading on insteps, pulling hair, spitting, etc.

The game appeared to me to be woefully lacking in the flowing football department, in spite of the assistance from referee Steve Dunn, a man who can normally be relied on to exhibit self-control and common sense. I think he must have been suffering from lack of booze as well on Saturday, he had a howler. He tried to keep the game flowing by the simple expedient of not blowing his whistle at all, at first. People were going down all over the place from extravagantly late tackling, but he just ignored all appeals and waved play on. I'd normally be the first to agree that there are far too many stoppages these days from referees who appear to have had their whistles surgically implanted into their epiglottis, but this was ridiculous. He didn't get any better, either.

The only light relief was seeing Fergie beetling out onto the pitch whenever one of his precious boys got tackled. Watching him being physically held back by Gary Willard, the fourth official, was extremely gratifying, and gave us the chance to get warm by bellowing insults at him. His mouth assumed the usual cat's arse appearance, and he retired hurt into his dirt box, er, I mean dugout.

Again, the brainwashing effect came into play as I noted with alarm that things weren't quite right - this was supposed to be the one we'd all been waiting for. Chelsea were going to put right the injustice of the January abomination, even Graeme Le Saux had been gobbing off on TV about how it would all be put right, Vialli would make sure the commitment was there, etc, etc. In fact, nothing of the sort happened. Apart from Den, none of them seemed to have read the plot, and played as though we had no chance of winning from the start. The lack of confidence had returned, at no time did we get at United. Nobody wanted to take them on, it looked like they were too scared of making a mistake.

Inevitably, United cottoned on, and calmy set about probing our defence until, equally inevitably, they sprung our inept offside trap and allowed a man who has never scored a goal the chance to tee up his shot like a golfer. Whichever Man U fan won his 25p bet at Ladbrokes on Phil Neville to score the first goal at twelve million to one, please send a contribution to the players' bonus pool, care of Stamford Bridge, Fulham Rd SW6. They deserve it.

I won't bore you by describing the rest of the game, this report is already far too long. Suffice to say that the match was over from that point on; United are far too organised to be beaten by any team that's not playing at full tempo, and I'm sorry to say that Chelsea never got anywhere near.

We all breathed a sigh of relief when Steve Dunn blew the final whistle. The unbounded and ludicrous optimism that Chelsea will get one back at any second which usually infects us was distinctly lacking, another example of the unsettling effect of lager deprivation. It was plainly obvious that we were never going to score, and I strongly suspect that even a whole swimming pool of beer (what a great idea !) would have done little to change that point of view. As we left I noticed that some of the seats are different colours, as well. Let's hope that I can remain flat on my back with device in place the night before the next home game.

Ten out of ten for Dennis Wise, the rest of them were average, none more so than Vialli. He appeared to be tired, judging by the way he failed to chase after the ball. A pity, then, that he didn't replace himself with Flo a bit earlier. United's defence appeared to find Flo awkward to deal with, but he only had about two minutes to test them.

Finally, I must take this opportunity to have a moan. Even though I'm reluctant to criticise my club, I can't keep quiet about this: a big thank you to the police for spoiling everybody's day by insisting on the ludicrous start time, and to Chelsea Football Club and the FA for putting up with it. We're paying a lot of money in exchange for being treated exactly as we were when we were paying sixpence to stand on the terraces. Watch out: we're stupid, but not that stupid. If you believe the stories of 40 percent increases in ticket prices next season, we'll be paying more to watch 90 minutes of football than for a night at the Royal Opera House, top West End show, etc., and still have to put up with authorities who treat us with contempt in return.

It doesn't add up, any fool can see that. If Chelsea want to change the profile of their customers by pricing out their traditional fan base, that's up to them, but any first year marketing student could tell them that, if you want to charge a premium price, you have to provide a premium service, something they're plainly not doing. I don't care how many hotels and new stands they build or how many glamourous foreign players they buy, they're alienating the people that pay for it. They must start to look after their customers' interests a bit more.. Over to you, Ken.