This page is dedicated to Alan, a Chelsea legend from the great early 70's side, and to help promote his book The Tinker and Talisman.
The Tinker and Talisman is largely about the dramatic events that have unfolded at Chelsea since the arrival of 'The Talisman' Roman Abramovich. Claudio if you hadn't guessed it is 'The Tinker'! Interwoven with the main story are several sub-plots; they include Huddy's continuing recovery from the traffic accident that nearly killed him in 1997, reminiscences of his career in the game with the Blues, Stoke, Arsenal and Seattle Sounders and his quirky observations on love, horse racing and spiritualism.
A True Chelsea Legend
Alan came through the Chelsea ranks and then manager, Tommy Docherty, who was following his progress closely, would have made him the youngest player in Chelsea's history at 16 had injury not intervened and kept him on the sidelines for nine months.
He made his debut in a weakened Chelsea team that lost to Southampton 5-0 in February 1969 but it was the following season that he established himself as the team's playmaker, supplying the ammunition for Ossie, Ian Hutchinson and Tommy Baldwin while directing passes to all points on the pitch with either left or right foot and an accompanying flick of his fashionably long hair !
Charlie Cooke described him as 'having silky smooth skills and tremendous vision. He made players around him better.' For Peter Osgood, no midfielder in the country could compare to the teenage prodigy who became a regular in the Chelsea side at just 18. 'Huddy was world class,' says Ossie 'a genius.'Injury yet again kept him out of the FA Cup Final in 1970 when we beat Leeds United 2-1 in a replay at Old Trafford after drawing 2-2 at Wembley, but he played a major role in winning the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1971, this was the highlight of his career.
Being a playmaker more than a goal scorer, he didn't score many goals for Chelsea but when he did they were usually quite memorable. One of the best was at Coventry during the 69/70 season and I quote Alan from the Chelsea magazine;'I picked the ball up just outside my own box, I was going to knock it to Ossie but a gap opened up and I just shot through. All their defenders were chasing me, Bill Glazier (Coventry goalkeeper) came out and I clipped it over him. I went behind the goal with Ossie who was holding my hand up and the Chelsea fans were going mad. Then we started running back to the halfway line and Ossie said, "That was so good, we'll do it again!" so we ran back to the fans a second time.'
One of his goals became the talking point for the whole country as it was shown on Match Of The Day. It happened during the 70/71 season at home to Ipswich and I quote Alan again from the Chelsea magazine;
'The ball came to me and I struck it really well from about 30 yards. It hit the stanchion on the outside of the goal and bounced back out. I knew it wasn't a goal and I just turned round facing up for the goal kick. Suddenly, though, the ref was pointing to the centre spot. The Ipswich players went mad, they were furious. David Webb said to me, "Tell him it didn't go in..." I said "**** off, Webby we're on 30 quid a point!" That was the difference between having a meal in my favourite restaurant, Alexander's on the King's Road, that night or not. Anyway, I'd had a couple disallowed so I thought I deserved a bit of luck.'The following years after the 2-1 win against Real Madrid in the European Cup Winners' Cup in 1971 were less than happy for Alan at Chelsea. We lost to Stoke City 2-1 in the 1972 League Cup Final at Wembley, Chelsea were in financial trouble after building the then new East Stand and problems with manager Dave Sexton, resulted in Alan and Ossie both being placed on the transfer list in January 1974. By the end of the month Alan had joined Stoke and unbelievably his Chelsea career was sadly over at the age of 22.