Gated community at Stamford Bridge

Stamford Bridge is a stadium hidden between its own adjacent buildings and various properties that surround it in that border area between the distinguished neighborhood of Chelsea and the more classic Fulham (where, in fact, the stadium stands). Unlike the Bernabéu, a unique building but integrated as one more element in the urban fabric of Madrid, the pitch blue it is easier to keep it away from the eyes of the curious. And now he suffers from that loneliness. The sanctions against Roman Abramovich, the tycoon who catapulted the entity to another level almost two decades ago, drown the club, deprived for weeks of being able to collect income and, therefore, prevented from exploiting all the commercial potential that Stamford offers Bridge.

The enclosure has Besides of tour from the stadium and the club’s museum, with several restaurants and bars, a couple of hotels, a gym with a spa, the club’s ‘megastore’ and a second store for match days. The latter sports a large notice in its window: “This matchday store is closed today. Sorry for the inconvenience. Please visit our megastore.” In recent weeks, however, the store has been closed and it is impossible to approach it. Just a few meters ahead, two security guards stop the visitor. Everything is closed and you can not go beyond that control.

It’s noon on Sunday, hangover from the defeat (1-4) against Brentford, and at Stamford Gate, one of the three gates of the enclosure, a few curious people stop. A local family, who walks with a child dressed in the T-shirt blue, stops for a few moments so that the little boy contemplates the stadium from afar. A couple takes several photos on a wall with the club crest and player portraits before one of the guards warns them to leave the fenced area. Others three friends, also Londoners, pass by and stop. “Just to take a look,” they claim. Although it is difficult to get a few words out of them, they all know that Stamford Bridge is a closed stadium, only accessible to the public on the days that Chelsea plays.

A few meters further on at Bovril Gate, two tourists from New Jersey take photos on the fence, with the stadium in the background. The younger of the two declares himself a Manchester United fan, but he says that he is thinking of buying a ticket for the museum. “Is it completely closed?”, he says surprised when talking to AS.

The only key to enter

Britannia Gate is the closest gate to Fulham Broadway tube station and the one with the best view of the stadium façade. There you can see a poster announcing that tickets for the match against Madrid are sold out. A family of Asian tourists asks for the entrance to the enclosure to the security guard who guards that access, totally fenced. They attend to this newspaper in a hurry. They had museum tickets booked for a month and are an hour late for their scheduled visit. They are not clueless. The only exception that allows entry to Stamford Bridge (apart from employees and food deliverers for these) is for those who had booked their visit before the sanctions on Abramovich took effect. They are among the privileged.

Minutes later, a group of six friends from Indonesia stop to take photos. Unaware of the closure, they ask if they can go to the stadium. Negative. Supporters of various teams confess. One of them, Pernawan, confesses his love for Real Madrid and takes off his coat to take a photo with the Madrid shirt.

A little football environment

Except for the exterior decoration that can be seen in the enclosure and the banners that display the image of the footballers on the lampposts as one approaches the stadium, the atmosphere that is breathed in the surroundings of Stamford Bridge is not very football-oriented. The clerk of a grocery store opposite Stamford Gate says that the cessation of most activities at Stamford Bridge has not impacted his day-to-day business. The corner establishment seems oblivious to its site. Physically, as the closest pub to the stadium blueand in history. In the place where The Butcher’s Hook now stands, Chelsea was founded on March 10, 1905. A blackboard outside recalls the event, but does not seem to serve as a claim. The atmosphere of the interior keeps few references to the team whose cradle it was. few and imprecise. A table representing a line-up from the 2016-17 season includes either Filipe Luis or Drogba as substitutes, who left in 2015…

A West Ham-Everton match is being played, but all three local televisions are tuned to the BBC, which is broadcasting the Oxford-Cambridge regatta. When at minute 10 they connect to Tottenham-Newcastle, on pay television, only one of the ten customers who are in the bar at that moment pays attention to the game. “It shows a little that there are fewer people, but there is not much we can do,” says, between resigned and indifferent, one of the waiters. Football, the national sport, does not seem to arouse passions around Stamford Bridge.