I was lucky enough to get to work with the late, great Peter Osgood for a period in the mid 90’s and also get to call him my friend, it was an amazing experience given the way I had idolised him from the terraces as a kid. He was out and out Mr Chelsea. The number nine. King of the Kings road. He also hung around with Raquel Welch for a period and for an impressionable young man back then that was something else altogether!

I with worked Ossie on a number of projects and he introducing me to Geoff Hurst and Matthew Harding. They say you should never actually get to meet your idols as they never match up to your expectations of them but Os did this and more! Matthew was a phenomenon but my relationship with him is for another day. Such a damned shame he was lost to us so young, he would have been the greatest club owner and patron Chelsea football club could ever have had!

I first met Paul around 6 years ago when bumped into him at the Bridge on a match day. We got talking briefly about his charity and his passion for supporting vulnerable young people. I was with the CEO of the Rio Ferdinand Foundation who just happens to be a Chelsea season ticket holder and we arranged to meet Paul in the following weeks to see what we could do to help him

Fast forward 6 years and I was with him when he met with the Chicago Cubs owner last week after he had tweeted his dissatisfaction with racist comments attributed to relatives of the owner and been contacted by Chelsea Chairman Bruce Buck at the request of Tom Ricketts who wanted to meet him.

I am not going to say too much about what went on in that meeting beyond what we have already said about it. Paul gave the guy a torrid grilling over the remarks and made it clear that he backed the supporters who held the same values as him which of course was hugely important to him given his own background and journey with the club. Paul also asked Bruce Buck to arrange meetings with all the prospective new owners so that he could ask them the same questions about their anti racism, diversity and inclusion policies.

He was crystal clear that he would not be backing anybody in a personal capacity and it was in his role as the clubs anti racism ambassador that he agreed to take the meeting. He also requested that he was accompanied by myself and the Chair of his Foundation. Paul did say that he thought Tom Ricketts had been as apologetic as he could have been for his families misdemeanours

From a personal perspective as a fan of 60 odd years of course I was interested to hear what the guy had to say about the overall structure and ambition of his consortiums bid but it was Paul leading the meeting and he was adamant that he wanted to show parity to all those bidding and respect the process.

This is such an important issue for Roman Abromovich to try and get right as best he can under the restraints and restrictions placed on him by the Government sanction and given he had met with Tom Ricketts previously when the only thing that stopped him selling the club then was the asking price it appeared to me that this was likely to be Romans preferred option and given they had now come back to the table with an investor worth £ 20 Billion personally. Seems logical given they also had expertise in stadium rebuild within a built up residential metropolis and they had previously done due diligence on the plans Roman had invested in for the Bridge. Personal thoughts and insights of course!

Absolutely zero question in my mind that Rickett family members had been guilty of abhorrent comments and that there were also questions raised from Chicago Cub fans about their running of the Cubs. Did this mean that Tom Ricketts should be disqualified from the bidding process though?

The morality of the Chelsea social media follower base is admirable but given the rise of racism and hate crime re-emerging in football stadiums since 2016 and the dark arts of the vote leave campaign I am not sure that the British establishment currently has the moral high ground to be exercising judgement on the matter quite frankly!

Reports of racist abuse rose by 43% last season, Kick It Out figures show – BBC Sport

Anyway, lets get back to Canners and the fantastic work he does campaigning against racism and hate crime and fighting for the rights of the most vulnerable in society. He is quite frankly, Chelsea Football clubs greatest ambassador by a country mile in this respect and has never had the support from the Club his work and status deserves in my opinion.

I have been with him now many times when he has visited schools and given his talk and it makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck just thinking about the impact I have witnessed. His style is raw and totally authentic and I would be surprised if many of the young kids who put their hands up and declare themselves Arsenal, Spurs or Manchester United fans at the start of the presentation will not be changing their allegiance to Chelsea by the time Canners has finished his talk. For anyone who was around in the early 80’s that remember the hell he was put through by the National Front members among the Chelsea fan base, you will find this as remarkable as I do and understand what I mean when I say he has never been as looked after in return by the club as he could have been

When we got the call that the Club were planning to name a corporate suite after him he was laying in a hospital bed and his Sister June had called me a few days earlier in absolute pieces as she had been told it was likely he would not pull through. We are delighted for him more so of course that he once again rose up resilient and lived to fight another day but also that the Canoville suite is now the biggest named corporate area in the stadium. Even more poignant that Paul requested that the area also celebrated all the great black players that had followed after him. As humble as he is resilient!

It was a far cry from the first time I had joined Canners for a meeting with Chairman Bruce Buck to discuss his Foundation. The meeting had started with Simon Taylor the MD of the clubs own Foundation shuffling papers in front of us while explaining to Bruce Buck that the Paul Canoville Foundation hadn’t filed its accounts with the charity commission on time. Incredible!! Rude beyond any comprehension you might have of the word rude!! Think what Paul had been through with the club previously. Think about the fact we were in a room just above the David Speedie entrance FFS!!!!!

The Chelsea Foundation rarely communicates with Paul and even when they run anti racism projects they tend not to even let him know anything is going on. Facts.

I want to make something clear, Paul thinks the World of Chairman Bruce Buck and feels that it was down to him and Roman directly that the naming of the suite happened.

Bruce seems to be getting a lot of flack from the media now due to his trying to do right by Paul by treating his anti racism ambassador role with the club with respect in organising the meeting. Talking about the dark arts of the vote leave campaign I have no doubt that similar media spin tactics are now in play with the various bidding consortiums.

While Paul has asked to meet all of them so he can listen to all their ambition and policy ideas around tackling black racism, diversity and inclusion, there has been no firm interest as yet. Indeed, we have heard that one bid in particular has said they have no interest in meeting as this is not an area they want to focus on at this time. fair enough I guess!!

One final point I would like to finish on is that of the ludicrous abuse Paul received on social media last week. There are a lot of ludicrous people on Twitter these are not real Chelsea fans. The real fans will mob him in the street for selfies at todays home game as he turns up for his shift as a match day host in the corporate suites as they always do. Paul does not get any support from the club for his anti racism work in schools but they do pay him along with several other ex players to attend home matches as a match day ambassador

I hope that Paul is treated with the respect his authentic standing with Chelsea football club deserves by whoever the new owner eventually is. That is the bottom line here

FOOTNOTE:

The Paul Canoville Foundation generates funding to cover cost of Pauls school talks by designing and selling merchandise. If you would like to support Pauls work and are a Chelsea supporter. Here is the link

Chelsea – Love Football Hate Racism (lfhr.org.uk)

#LoveChelseaHateRacism

#ImagineNotBeingChelsea