Chelsea FC

I don't think I like living by a football stadium. Whenever there are Chelsea home games the trains are suddenly inundated with men wearing bright blue jerseys, all heading to or from Fulham Broadway. This past Saturday there was a home game at 3 (the kind folks at the Fulham Broadway tube station have a permanent sign up saying when the next home game is and who they are playing), which meant I had to wait for the second train before I was able to squeeze onto a train into town. Luckily it was getting close to game time and most people were probably there already and everyone gets off at the next stop so you are in the clear after that.

On Monday I was not pleased when I saw the sign saying that there was going to be another home game on Tuesday (yesterday) at 7:45 pm, basically in order to cause maximum disruption for all who live or work on the Wimbledon branch of the District Line. I was okay on the leg of my journey from Notting Hill Gate to Earls Court, where a mass was waiting and not everyone was able to squeeze on. I was heading towards the gym, which meant I had to get off at Fulham. Normally you just walk out of the tube, up some steps and up a couple escalators to get to the gym, without having to go outside. It's really quite nice. But not when there's a Chelsea game. The stadium is right next to the shopping centre, and to deal with the crowds for these games they shut the normal entrance/exit to the tube and open up these normally locked doors at the end of the platform. Instead of being shuffled into the nice warm mall you have to shuffle along with a massive crowd, some of which are singing, go outside, up some steps and end up in some random side street. I couldn't even figure out where the mall was right away. There are a number of restaurants in the mall, all of which had huge long lines (you normally never see lines, like, ever) to get tables before the game started. The little line guiding ropes were Chelsea blue.

I was hoping the gym wouldn't be very crowded because of the game, but it was. Alas. I met up with Turner post gym to head back to the green, but the game was still yet to start so we decided to go see the Golden Compass. Of course, as it turned out this just meant we were leaving at 10, when the game probably got out about 9:30. So again instead of being able to slip down the escalator and straight to the tube (yes, you can walk but it was below freezing so we didn't want to), we had to walk outside and down random side street to get to the tube. It was quite amusing going down to the 'westbound' platform that was practically empty and looking across to the 'eastbound' platform, where there was literally a solid wall of Chelsea fans about 10 deep waiting to cram onto trains. I took a picture. Normally I would fear photographing Chelsea fans in fear of attack, but there were two third rails separating us so I was feeling a bit bold. I guess they had the final laugh when 3 eastbound trains came before a westbound train, so they were all scooted off before me anyways! Oh, and by the time the train came they had also reopened the 'normal' entrance/exit and closed the giant doors. If only the movie was a few minutes longer!

The ballet tonight is the Royal Ballet performance at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. I'm hoping it's the top notch London Nutcracker. Of course I hope it's not that great as I bought the tickets before my first paycheck and thus have really cheap limited view seats!