Chelsea’s loss to Manchester City in Saturday’s FA Cup final has left them with little to play for over the dregs of this season.
They are relying on slip-ups from Bournemouth, Brighton & Hove Albion and Brentford to offer them an unlikely route to European football in 2026-27. The trophy cabinet will be bare. Instead, the buzz of appointing Xabi Alonso as their new manager will have to suffice in focusing minds.
But nothing lifts the mood quite like kicking a rival while they are down, and a win over Tottenham Hotspur at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night would have massive implications for their visitors from across the capital. While a Spurs win would mean they are safe from relegation, a Chelsea victory would mean third-bottom West Ham United could still save themselves from relegation. If Chelsea win, West Ham beat Leeds and Spurs lose to Everton in their own final game, Tottenham would go down.
For Chelsea fans, who have had little to cheer of late, to be able to contribute to Spurs’ demotion would be particularly sweet — especially for those of a certain vintage who have been waiting over half a century for this moment. “April 19, 1975. It’s engrained in my memory,” says season-ticket holder Graham Wright, 66, recalling a trip to Tottenham’s then home White Hart Lane as a 15-year-old.
Fifty-one years ago, these two clubs faced off in a crunch relegation battle. That time, it was Chelsea who went down.
In April 1975, as author and fan Tim Rolls puts it, Chelsea were “in trouble on and off the field”.
The club were beset with financial problems, key members of the FA Cup-winning side of 1970 had departed, and former player Eddie McCreadie had just taken over as manager from Ron Suart, who himself had only replaced Dave Sexton the previous October.
For the third-to-last game of the season, Chelsea travelled to Tottenham in 19th place, one point ahead of their hosts in 20th — the first relegation place in a then 22-team top flight.
“The club was in turmoil, basically,” Rolls says. “Everyone knew how crucial the game at White Hart Lane in April 1975 was. I think it was known from supporters on both sides that it was going to be a tense day.”
For Darren Rowe, 65, that Saturday started inauspiciously. Then 14, Rowe met fellow supporters at Fulham Broadway, near Stamford Bridge, and waited for a large group to travel across the capital to the match together on the underground. It was not a smooth journey.
“People were just acting like idiots on the Tube,” he says. “There was a lever you could pull and it would set the alarm off on the train and the train would stop immediately, and this happened a couple of times — and it delayed us by about, literally, for a couple of hours, just doing that journey to get to Seven Sisters (the underground station for White Hart Lane).”
Neil Smith, co-author of the book Eddie Mac Eddie Mac, about McCreadie, was 19 at the time and remembers how his own Tube service was “packed and yet it was silent”.
“Everybody knew how tense it was,” he says, recalling the mile-long walk from Seven Sisters to the stadium. “When you got into the vicinity of White Hart Lane, there were police vans everywhere, sirens going off. You saw people with bloodied faces being put into ambulances or police vehicles. They were struggling to arrest people.”
This was in an era where violence at the football was common, and with Spurs’ victory over Chelsea in the 1967 FA Cup final still fresh in the memory for many supporters, the rivalry between the two clubs was feverish enough without being ratcheted up by the threat of one of them suffering relegation.
When many Chelsea fans arrived at the stadium that April day — with tickets sold at the turnstile in those days — it was already close to capacity. Wright, 15 at the time, and his friend had gained entry to the Paxton Road end early and waited for others to join them, but by the time many Chelsea fans arrived, the turnstiles were shut and they found themselves surrounded by home supporters.
“We were mainly kids,” Wright says. “These were big. These were blokes. These were 18-to-25-year-olds. Some, I think, were nearly 30, looking at them. And we stood there waiting, and next thing you know, they’ve all come piling down on top of us from behind. Some ran on the pitch.”
He and his friend climbed over a fence to reach ‘the Shelf’ terrace running along the east touchline — with his friend tearing his jeans on a spike in the process. “So he’s walking around with his Levi jeans hanging off,” Wright says. “We went in the Shelf to try and find more Chelsea, but that was just the Tottenham lot in there and in the Park Lane as normal. And none of ours got in. So we sort of kept our heads down.”
“I remember being near a floodlight, and I think we even tried to climb up it to get a view, because it was that packed.”
From his vantage point in the Shelf, Smith remembers watching confrontations between Chelsea and Tottenham fans spilling out of the stands. “There was a terrific commotion opposite where there was an entrance on the other side of the ground. And it appeared that a massive Chelsea contingent were coming into the ground, which was nearly already full to capacity.
“A lot of the Tottenham fans in the Paxton Road end confronted them — and it ended up, because it was so packed, that the Chelsea fans who were just coming into the ground spilled onto the pitch.
“Kids from all four sides of the ground got onto the pitch. And there were plenty of fights, pitch battles, literally going on on the pitch. But you didn’t really know which fans were which. The colours weren’t evident. And then, come kick-off time, everyone started chanting, ‘Off, off, off.’
“Jack Taylor was the referee and he came on, and then people realised it was kick-off time. And then they cleared the pitch and the match started.”
McCreadie took a risk on a youthful team.
“He made Ray Wilkins, who was 18, his captain,” Rolls says. “He dropped a load of experienced players like John Hollins and Steve Kember and went with the youngsters. Now, the older players weren’t performing, but it’s still a heck of a gamble.”
Even with that risk, the fans The Athletic spoke to recall Chelsea being the better side for large parts of the game.
“The first half came and went, and they hadn’t bothered our goalkeeper at all,” Smith says. “Early on in the game, Charlie Cooke chested the ball down and volleyed it in past (Spurs goalkeeper) Pat Jennings. And I thought it was very harshly ruled out as it brushed his arm.”
Chelsea forced some excellent saves from Jennings, who denied Ian Britton and Ian Hutchinson in the first half. But after the break, they succumbed: Steve Perryman tapped in at the back post to put the home side ahead. Chelsea’s Micky Droy thought he had equalised, only to see his finish disallowed for handball as well.
Then Alfie Conn struck Spurs’ second from the edge of the area, and there was no way back.
“All I remember was the Spurs fans singing ‘Bye Bye Chelsea’ to (the tune of) the Bay City Rollers song Bye Bye Baby,” Wright says. “The whole of the ground was singing it because we knew, obviously, we’d probably get relegated on the back of this. It was one of the worst games I’ve been to in that respect.”
Tottenham did not technically relegate Chelsea that day. They could still have recovered, but only drew their final two fixtures. Spurs picked up the same number of points from their two remaining matches — meaning that win on April 19 turned out to be decisive.
Chelsea spent the next two seasons in the second division, winning promotion back to the first tier at the end of the 1976-77 season — trading places with Tottenham, who were relegated.
In a sense, the west Londoners have already had their payback. Tottenham have only won once in their past 35 league away games against Chelsea (drawing 11 and losing 23). Chelsea have also won 38 Premier League meetings between the two clubs, the most they have managed against any opponent since the revamped competition launched in 1992. Spurs have only lost more times against Manchester United (40).
But that is not stopping fans hoping for relegation revenge, though — especially those with less-than-fond memories of 1975.
“I’ve hated Tottenham ever since that day,” Wright says. “The irony of it as well was my sister gave birth to my nephew that day. And he’s (grown up to be) a Spurs fan. That exact day. You couldn’t make it up.”
Wright is a season-ticket holder, but ill health has kept him from going to Chelsea in recent months. This meeting with Spurs will be his first match back.
“Everyone you could think of is coming out for that game,” he adds. “That will make our season if we can put them down.
“And it’ll make up for the April 19, 1975 as well.”