"In your Liverpool slums..."

Some things in life are better than others. Stuffing Liverpool 4-1 at home is definitely one of them, especially when one of your favourite players ever scores one of his rare goals.

For once I wasn't sure in advance what the outcome would be. There were too many variables: would Chelsea give a hoot or not (yes), would the scousers have anyone any good in their team (no, apart from Macmanaman), etc. etc. I should have known better. Apart from an extremely dodgy period either side of half time, Chelsea absolutely CREAMED Liverpool, it was almost as if the scousers hadn't bothered to turn up.

Within seconds of the kickoff, Zola was at them like a demented ferret, running at the defenders, laying off balls to Hughes and sprinting on for the return, nobody could keep up with him. It was obvious we would score, and after a couple of very close shaves, Clarkey curled the ball in from the right, and there was Hughesy, ghosting away from Matteo and rising to nod the ball past Brad whatsisname in true Sparky fashion. Majestic was the word that came to mind, after I had extricated myself from a potentially life-threatening bear hug from "Rab C" Dickson.

How good it felt to have put one past the scousers after a mere 10 minutes. We settled back to enjoy a comprehensive display of football skill from Zola as he mesmerised and completely outfoxed Liverpool's surprisingly inept back four. We must have had at least five real chances, most of which were brilliantly saved by either the bar or Brad the Septic in the Liverpool goal. He had an excellent game, really rising to the occasion. Without him it would have been a rout.

After 20 minutes or so, Zola suddenly found himself through on goal, you would have bet anything that he'd score, but he weakly chipped the ball at the keeper, who gratefully caught it.. Virtually everybody put their head in their hands, it seemed such an awful miss, but Zola had pulled up in pain. He took no further part in the game, and was subbed by Flo to rapturous applause for both, but Zola looked well pissed off that he'd done his groin in. Let's hope it's not too serious. Not having him for the ECWC final would be unthinkable.

It was really noticeable that Liverpool were off the hook when Zola went off. Suddenly they were attacking in numbers, instead of having all 11 players in the penalty area, as had been happening regularly up until then. Macmanaman, in particular, started putting some runs together, and was looking dangerous. Inevitably he received the ball, completely unmarked, on the right wing, and danced round Le Saux and into the penalty area. Murphy took the ball off his foot and shot fiercely at Kharine, who could only parry, and Riedle was there to slot in the rebound. Richly undeserved, but nevertheless 1-1 at half time.

The second half started in the same vein, with Liverpool putting pressure on Chelsea's defence. Again, Macmanaman was looking dangerous. Luckily, the rest of them were so crap that they couldn't have hit a barn door with a shotgun, so we survived the onslaught until the game changed completely after 20 minutes. Some of the halfwits around us had started getting at the players they'd been cheering for only minutes earlier, so I had been treating them to some hard Paddington stares and some what I thought were well-chosen comments along the lines of "why don't you back the team up instead of slagging them when they're having a hard time", etc. It makes me sick when that happens, because you just know that these same people will be praising the same players to high heaven as soon as we score - that's jumping on the bandwagon if anything is.

Sure enough, Chelsea started to get it together again, and were putting in some useful attacks, when suddenly Beefy pumps the ball into the area, it hits Clarkey on the chest, and yes, he turns and bangs it in the back of the net, Brian ! Pandemonium ! We couldn't believe it, and neither could Clarkey. Every time he got the ball after that he was cheered to the rafters, especially by the halfwit I'd distinctly heard calling him "over the hill" a few minutes earlier: stunning hypocrisy, but enough said about that.

Liverpool were falling to pieces before our eyes, I'm not surprised professional scouser Roy Evans was so gutted after the game. They were awful. Babb and Matteo were appalling, making error after error, completely failing to follow the game. Le Saux duly threaded the ball through to Flo, the Liverpool defence moved up in one of the most badly-execute offside traps I've seen this season, and Flo was away. Both Matteo and Babb tried everything, fair and foul, to get him off the ball, but he magnificently raced through and stabbed the ball past the advancing Friedel just before he finally lost his balance. 3-1, and absolute, total mayhem in the stands. I vaulted forward three rows to escape another life-sapping hug from Dicko, but he wasn't to be denied, grabbing me as I got back. He only let go when my eyes rolled back into my head and I was good and unconscious.

By the time I woke up we were attacking again, and I was just in time to see the Hughes trade mark bicycle kick goal. Di Matteo, I think, took a free kick from the right, which glanced off Duberry's head and came down in front of Hughes, who, as usual, had his back to the goal. He didn't even think about it, just launched himself into the air and volleyed it into the back of the net. This was very unfortunate for me, as I was still hanging on to Dicko's lapels while my head cleared, and I only had time to register the fact that Hughes had scored before I went under again. The last thing I can remember is Dicko's mad Scottish face, contorting with ecstasy as he squeezed the remaining breath out of me. Next time I'm putting Marc and Tommy between us, and they can see if they're still laughing then.

Of course, we baited the scousers mercilessly, "you're not very good", "are you Tottenham in disguise ?", etc. That'll teach them to do us 5-1 at Anfield. No, I haven't forgotten. Me and some of the Chelsea chat lot have been bombing their chat site with very amusing results today, as well. Life doesn't get much sweeter than that.