FOR SOME, NO CHELSEA TEAM WILL ever be able to evoke memories like the side of the 1970s, when Alan Hudson, Peter Osgood and Charlie Cooke provided many magical moments. Each had his own flair, but Hudson, more than most, has ridden a rollercoaster of a life. He was the boy from the prefab, the orchestrator who tamed Real Madrid and the inspiration for victory over West Germany on his international debut. He was lauded by Bill Shankly for producing the greatest performance the Scot had seen and nearly lost his life after being knocked down by a car.
Hudson played with an outlandish swagger and now talks with frankness. “Chelsea don’t have a Cooke, an Osgood, a Hudson or an Eddie McCreadie,” he said. “We wouldn’t have swapped (Peter) Bonetti for anyone. Had Dave Sexton not been our manager and we had the pitches, balls and stadium they have now, Chelsea would have won the league. Our ground worked against us — the crowd were miles away. George Best wanted to join us, but Sexton couldn’t handle what he had. Liverpool were nearly as good drinkers as us, but as long as they did it on a Saturday, Shankly was OK with it.” Hudson believes that Chelsea are good enough to win the title now, but not with Gérémi and Claude Makelele playing together. “They might have got in our reserves,” he said.
Hudson still bears his distinctive toothy grin, but his body is a patchwork of scars and bumps, the legacy of an accident involving a car seven years ago that left his pelvis shattered and a blood clot on his brain.
His eccentric career also embraced Stoke City, twice, Arsenal and Seattle Sounders. He would have played in the FA Cup Final and the World Cup finals in 1970 but for an ankle injury and then had to wait a further five years to play against West Germany under Don Revie. “He said don’t forget what they did to our families in the war,” Hudson said. “Great team talk. I thought: ‘You idiot.’ ”
Hudson, in his book, tussled with words to describe walking out to see Franz Beckenbauer wearing a green shirt and looking immaculate. “I looked at him and thought: ‘This is it,’ ” he said. “On that night I wished I was German to play with Franz and against Revie.”
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Hudson’s masterly performance in a 2-0 victory was rewarded with only one more cap. Now, living on the World’s End estate in Chelsea, he writes for the Stoke Sentinel, but he never goes to Stamford Bridge after falling out with Ken Bates.
Hudson regrets never playing for Shankly or Brian Clough. He is one of the few players to have fronted up to Clough and won. Clough had informed Alan Hinton, Hudson’s manager at Seattle, that the player had drunkenly fallen off a stool at a bar in an airport. “It wasn’t me and I had the raging hump, so I wrote to Clough,” Hudson said. “I said: ‘Don’t tell lies. You should have told Hinton about your first game in charge at Leeds United, when I made the goals (for Stoke) and we won 3-0. I helped get you the sack and am glad.’ ”
Some months later, Hudson, then assistant coach at Seattle, went with Hinton to Nottingham Forest to scout for players. “We walked into Clough’s office, he was standing behind his desk and on the table were some glasses of brandy and champagne,” Hudson said. “He said: ‘You, young man, I got your letter.’ I stood up and said: ‘I felt I had to write to you.’ He picked up the champagne and said: ‘You can have the first one as you have some bollocks.’ ”