Do I love football more than Chelsea?

The most exciting season in the history of the Premiership was heading to a conclusion. Chelsea were playing away at the footballing cathedral that is Anfield. Liverpool as a city was enveloped in emotional hysteria for the 96 dead at Hillsborough, fired up by a team flying high, playing beautiful flowing football towards the phenomenal goal-scoring partnership of Daniel Sturridge and arguably the finest striker on the planet, Luis Suarez.

The Chelsea manager, Jose Mourinho, is a brilliant tactician. Scrupulously, he plans and prepares like no other in the game.

Sadly, his forte is ‘not losing’. From the first minute of that match against Liverpool it was clear that Chelsea’s players had been instructed to waste time.

Yes, they defended with great discipline, but that’s how Chelsea beat both European giants Barcelona and Bayern Munich.

Yes, they beat Liverpool, 2-0 at Anfield, in a famous victory.

But there it is, in plain words. I just typed ‘they’ in reference to Chelsea. A subconscious choice which not very long ago would have been ‘we’.

Time wasting from the start? Chelsea?

More than likely you’re simply delighted to have your TV schedules back. Have you spent a miserable six months flipping the channel-up button on your remote, muttering out loud to yourself “Football, football, bloody football! Why don’t they show any dramas? What about a good comedy? Is that too much to ask?”

No, my grumpy friend, it is not. To enjoy all of the above, simply abandon your channel surfing and watch the football instead. The Beautiful Game can satisfy those needs and add a touch of poetry too.

If only you better understood what you just missed. This season was phenomenal.

Cue twinkly-dinkly harpy music and wavy TV screen. Husky male voice: “Previously on The Premiership...”

In a land not very far away at all, the Very Ancient King from the Very Far North, victor of countless battles leading the United Clan of the Not Really North stood down from his throne. To replace him he called upon the blue-eyed Younger King of the Blue Not Really North But By The Sea Clan. Like the purple-nosed Very Ancient King, this young pretender was also from the Very Far North.

Unfortunately for the United Clan of the Not Really North, that was where the comparisons ended. A new time was born: a time for all who had suffered under the rule of the Very Ancient King to rise up, to fight back . . . to make amends . . .

Thrones were dangerous seats to sit upon this season. Only 11 of the 20 managers that started the Premiership survived in their jobs. Chelsea started this trend 10 years ago, when money arrived in the shape of oligarch owner Roman Abramovich, alongside power in the handsome charismatic style of Jose Mourinho.

The capricious entity that had previously been Chelsea FC, a vagabond collection of footballing artists and piss artists who played brilliantly one day and just couldn’t be bothered the next, turned into a corporate entity.

All that corporate entities require is results. Yes, it was great to win back to back League titles – brilliant! – but now I sit and cringe as a Chelsea fan.

Yet my love for football grows. Away from all the hyperbole of insane wages and grown men falling over far too easily, I cannot remember a season that I have enjoyed as much as this one. The fact that Chelsea won nothing at all doesn’t bother me in the least. That might sound strange. To be honest, I’m a bit confused myself.

See Charlie’s full column in this week’s Connacht Tribune and Galway City Tribune.