Courtesy of a corporate friend, I was given a ticket to see Wednesday night’s top game, but I couldn’t be bothered to schlep to see the mighty Colchester take on Sheffield Wednesday, so instead I popped over to SW6 to watch the Chelsea - Barcelona game.

I’d never been to Stamford Bridge, and was surprised by how small it felt – and of course kept comparing the whole evening with my experience of “The Grove”. We were in the West Upper – which meant a good few steps to get to the refreshments area on the fifth floor. We arrived some 40 minutes before the game started only to see the refreshments about to close – clearly this isn’t a club needing to sell food to raise cash. However they did charge £5.10 for a small portion of Potato Wedges & two bottles of water.

The West Upper is quite soulless – lots of grey concrete in the internal public areas - a couple of afterthought old televisions showing “Chelsea TV” – if you had told me it was a new stadium not decorated yet (like THOF) – I’d have believed it. (We must ensure “The Grove” does not still look like this in two or three years time).

The seats – ten rows back – had a reasonable view– not as comfortable as THOF, or nearly as much leg-room. There were Chelski flags on every seat – this was not looking good – I feared a participation exercise was on the way. We were in a mix of “regulars” and other corporate types. Lots of suits (well it is midweek) and country casuals (well it is SW6), but despite looking very hard I didn’t spot any shirt more than three years old – certainly no heroes of yesteryear like “Zola” or “Gullit” shirts – but lots of shiny new “Ballack” and “Shevchenko” ones on display.

Oh, and not one Cole (3) shirt either.

Five minutes before the coverage started (and the CL anthem) – we were invited to stand up, wave our flags and sing the Chelsea anthem – to the accompanying music. It felt like we were back at school, and the headmaster was asking us to open the hymn books to No. 134. I just read the programme notes about Barcelona and tried not to snigger too loudly. Judging by the chorus of singing around us, much like the National Anthem – everyone seemed to know most of the words of the first verse, but it faded rapidly after that to embarrassed mumbles – injected with that catchy chorus “Chelsea Chelsea, Chelsea Chelsea” – perhaps they should have printed the words in the programme? After all, it’s difficult to remember all those new words and all the names of the players – especially for all those “lifelong” fans.

One of the group behind us couldn’t remember the names of either Cech or Cudicini despite the fact that the game against Reading was only four days before – referring to them as “you, know – the old goalkeepers who were hurt”. As opposed, I presume, to the shiny new goalkeeper on show today. To his shame, he was rescued by the 12 year old next to him.

Half time, and due to our proximity to the steps managed to get to the re-opened refreshments – one Cornish pastie (quite nice actually), a hot dog (apparently OK), water and a coffee - £9.60. I was amused to see that the advert for Lampard’s new book/biography was “It’s big” – surely they meant “He’s big”? Either way the fact that this was only being advertised in the toilets was all I needed to know – that’s where it obviously belongs.

The running commentary throughout the game, from the characters behind me, was eloquent in the extreme – mainly consisting of “Go on Drobs”, “Go on Chevs”, “Go on Lamps” and “Yes, Maca”, and then shortly afterwards cursing “F**king Chevs” for missing another sitter. I know Gooners are not always that much better – but there were hardly any songs about the players, or indeed anything else - just the much borrowed “We’re by far the greatest team etc etc” and one call for the Shed End to “give us a song” – and even they couldn’t be bothered to reply with any gusto.

I was amazed to see the exit for home started a full 13 minutes before the end the game – much to the horror of my commentator behind me – who declared with authority “They’re not Chelsea fans, no no”. Still if you want to get a table at that Tapas bar – you just have to rush. Oh, the football – well there was one goal, should have been more - set up by the new chav-back, scored (admitted grudgingly) very well by the chav-diver-cheat. Barcelona were terrible, their fans were virtually silent after the first ten minutes - but I feel I’d have been better off going to see Colchester’s game – at least they won 4-0.