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CHELSEA FC FANS : Sunday 14 SEPT 2008 : BY GOLDENTHREAD

Good evening Chelsea Fans, Hello Soccernation Members (all 370 of us) , Welcome all Futbol fans, and as always....I sincerely hope "Our Beautiful Game" made your day more enjoyable than it might have been without it.

Tonight, Chelsea FC followers from all over the world have alot of reasons to be celebrating. We rolled out the Red Carpet for Robinho and Manchester City yesterday at Eastlands in front of a crowd numbered at 47,331 and then went on to show them what we're made of. After Robinho's debut goal on 13 minutes gave Man City the lead early, Chelsea came roaring back with goals from Ricardo Carvalho on 16 minutes, Frank Lampard on 53 minutes (the game winner) and Nicolas Anelka on 69 minutes to finish the match at 3-1 Chelsea. This keeps us in first place, tied with a Liverpool team that's showing no signs of letting up as of week # 4, at 10 Points each.

                
          Robinho scores from a free-kick on his debut for Manchester City.

Unfortunately, Chelsea Captain John Terry was shown a "straight Red Card" on 77 minutes. It is my understanding that Mark Halsey, the referee, deemed Terry's block on Jo, the City striker, to be serious foul play rather than a professional foul and he faces a three-match ban, ruling him out of matches against United, Stoke City and Aston Villa. This was a VERY controversial ruling and will be appealed to the League by Chelsea. But don't expect any results on this, John will be sitting for the next three weeks guarenteed.

         Jo, left, of Manchester City vies with John Terry of Chelsea during their Premiership League soccer match at the City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester, England, Saturday, Sept. 13, 2008.

The Terry Red Card is certainly a dose of bad news. However, here at Chelsea FC Fans Group, the events of the last couple of days are equally disturbing. There is even more bad news on the rise.

After Fannation underwent its dramatic makeover, our group's Creator, DANBASH decided that his heart just wasn't here anymore. The site's "new generic look" was something that Dan wasn't prepared for and was very unhappy with. The result....Danbash has left Fannation and I'm writing my first blog without his guidance.

When I joined Fannation in March 2008, I was hoping to connect with all of the Major League Soccer fans here, even though I had been a long time Chelsea fan. I joined KEEPER and jeevs at Soccernation my first day here and I found out that Fannation wasn't limited to the MLS. In fact, the MLS didn't even play a MAJOR roll with the site's soccer fans. I was delighted! On my second day here I found Danbash's group Chelsea FC Fans and I joined at once. I contacted Dan and I talked about the group and the need for a full time blogger. After a few days of consideration, Dan gave me the green light to get the group running full speed ahead and that's exactly what happened. He wanted the group to become the top FC group on the site and I shared that same vision with him. Well, eventually we laid claim to that reality and the group became a common place fixture on the Community page. We struggled to find other bloggers but that particular fish kept slipping the hook, but we surged ahead and made great use of the resources we had. We seemed to be firing on all cylanders. I've been extremely pleased at just how far this group has come in such a very short time.

I remain hopefull that we can carry on in Dan's absence, but it's going to be difficult. It's going to take time to get this mess sorted out so please be patient. Dan was a member like no other. Always courtious and forever helpful. I wish him the best of luck where ever he is and in whatever he is doing. Farewell and goodbye Danbash. We're going to miss you more than you will ever know

Chelsea FC fans and players alike gather to say Farewell to Danbash