Tommy Docherty managed Chelsea FC for six tumultuous years. Between 1961 and 1967 he got hired, relegated, promoted, lauded, let down, criticised, vilified, backed, victimised and fined. His departure was in keeping with much of his time at Chelsea – controversial and played out in newspaper headlines.
Garrulous, volatile, unpredictable, impulsive, innovative, intensely competitive, highly talented and much-loved by Chelsea supporters, ‘The Doc’ won one trophy for The Blues and was close to winning plenty more. He transformed and modernised the club, built a highly-regarded young team from the ashes he inherited but over time he fell out with, and sold, key players. In the end, amid gathering controversy, his parting was probably inevitable.
It can be argued that more happened to Chelsea in the six years of The Doc’s reign than in any comparable period before or since and this book to cover every major incident and key personality.
The famous victories. The numbing defeats. The players – Venables, Tambling, Bridges, Bonetti, Mortimore, Blunstone, Upton, Shellito, Murray, Harris, McCreadie, Graham, Hollins, Hinton, Boyle, Osgood, Cooke and more. The supporters. The heroes. The villains. The rows and the fall-outs. The controversies – Blackpool, Bermuda, the Roma riot and more. His relationships with chairmen, players, journalists and the football authorities. The stars he created, bought and sold.
Diamonds, Dynamos and Devils utilises extensive newspaper and book research to examine all of these and more, and draws a series of conclusions about one of the most exciting periods in Chelsea history. It also includes an exclusive recent interview with The Doc, whose talent for expressing trenchant views remains undimmed.
Docherty is still revered by many lifelong supporters who saw his teams play and Tim Rolls explains exactly why he is remembered with such affection, half a century after he left the club.
Tim Rolls' first Chelsea game was against Stoke City in September 1967, three weeks before Tommy Docherty left the club, and he has watched them regularly for over forty years in the company of The Curator, The Driver and The JCL.
A home and away season ticket holder since 1997, Tim increasingly struggles with the corporate, commercialised, homogenised, sanitised, selfie-stick culture that increasingly pervades top level football.
Retired, Tim lives in South West London. Diamonds, Dynamos and Devils is his first book.
