The reason I bleed blue today is Super Frank.
It was in the summer of 2004 when I fell in love with this English midfield maestro. Lampard was amazing for England in that European Championship. It was because of him I started to support Chelsea FC.
Back then we didn’t have live Barclays Premier League broadcasting in Nepal; I used to update my soccer news and events with the help of newspapers, tele news and highlights. Despite having a keen interest in English Premier League, I never had that loyalty and affection to one particular team. Everything changed after watching Euro Cup 2004.
I started to watch every Chelsea game there on after. It felt pleasure and pride at watching Frankie play. His screamers, goals from perfectly timed and instinctive runs, his perfectly placed spot kicks, were the salt and peppers of a Chelsea game for me. I admit that I started watching Chelsea week in, week out – just to watch Frank play. It didn’t feel the same when he wasn’t playing. But slowly things were changing. I started to love Chelsea as much as I loved Frankie. I started to enjoy games even when Frank wasn’t playing. Slowly and silently, the love for Frank made me a Chelsea lover and a true Blue.
Titles and trophies started to come into Chelsea FC’s trophy cabinet. We may not have had trophy cabinets full of trophies, but we still had a proud history. The likes of Peter Osgood, Kerry Dixon, Bobby Tambling, Marcel Desailly, Gianfranco Zola wore the great Blue shirt and entertained the Stamford Bridge faithful. And for my generation, there was Frank Lampard with likes of Petr Cech, John Terry, Didier Drogba. We, the Chelsea family were making one hell of a history in English and European football. It’s been a great ride as a Chelsea fan.
I was gutted to see this Chelsea legend in Man City shirt but then I totally understood why he did it. When he scored against us in Manchester last season, I didn’t feel sad. Neither was I happy. I said to myself: ‘Better Frankie than someone else.
Having played 608 Premier League games and scoring 176 goals; 429 league games and 147 league goals coming in Chelsea colours-the record goalscorer (211 goals in all competition) in Chelsea history and the highest goal scoring midfielder in premier league history – Frank James Lampard is one of the best midfielder ever to grace the beautiful Premier League.
As we Chelsea fans chant:
“Super super Frank, Super super Frank”
He truly was super.
