Talk about contrasts. It was either utter silence or deafening 80s hits at Leicester as Chelsea’s 1-0 win teed up an FA Cup semi against Man U at Wembley.
They struggled to get the balance right; the Tannoy messages relayed at full volume, as if competing with 32,000 baying fans. The guy could have whispered and we’d have heard him.
Lockdown football is unnerving. I had my temperature checked (a disconcerting gun to the head) before being presented with a sanitiser bottle.
The backdrop to Sunday’s quarter-final was a spike in Covid-19 cases in Leicester, so the 25 of us, dotted around the King Power press box, watched each other warily.
When we weren’t being assailed by Mr Blue Sky at 200 decibels, the strangest thing was being able to hear every conversation on the pitch, way below us.
I’m sure I heard Cesar Azpilicueta ask Billy Gilmour if he was available for babysitting next week, and I believe Tammy Abraham asked Mason Mount for a Polo in the warm-up.
The loudest blast, however, wasn’t from the stadium speakers, but from Foxes keeper Kasper Schmeichel, whose rant at referee Mike Dean could surely have been heard in Coventry.
The game itself made grim viewing in the first half as the Blues’ young midfield was overrun. But when Ross Barkley was one of three Frank Lampard subs at the start of the second half, it all changed.
In one of his finest performances for Chelsea, Barkley coordinated a tactical switch that culminated in him sweeping the ball home for the critical goal.
“We spoke at half-time,” said Lampard with understatement after a hairdryer session worthy of Sir Alex himself. If the stadium sound system hadn’t played Starman to the whole of the West Midlands, we could have earwigged.
At the final whistle, I walked – alone in my facemask – to the car, parked mere paces from the stadium exit door. I was on the M1 in four minutes flat. The most surreal Chelsea match I’ve ever covered.
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
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