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Chelsea History Part 462 The Save Claudio Campaign
By Boris Mellor
March 30 2005
As Chelsea fans begin to anticipate their "quadruple" lets just think back to those long long ago days when they adored Claudio Ranieri. Indeed they loved him so much they wanted to "Save him".

 Of course its all forgotten now after all its all of nine months, which is a long time for a club with no history, a very long time indeed. But lets just remind ourselves of the key dates, in April 2004 the following appeared on Chelsea FC blog:
 

"In order to show the Chelsea hierarchy that Claudio Ranieri has significant support among Chelsea fans and the footballing world as a whole, a website titled the ‘Save Claudio Campaign was setup in April 2004. To date it has 4801 messages of support. Why not add yours?" The Chelsea FC Blog.

Not just Chelsea fans but the whole footballing world note. The cause of all this world wide excitement was that the tinkerman was taking Chelsea on to an historic second place in the EPL. Not only that, but according to Chelsea fans, he had broken the Arsenal hoodoo. Inspired by this they got behind Claudio and demonstrated in his support, and organised a campaign to Save Claudio. Passions ran high as Chelsea fans sang his support, and Claudio shed tears.

However as we all know a manager is for Christmas, not for life, and the campaign is barely mentioned these days. But it's important such a glorious moment of club history is not forgotton by a club that has had few such moments.

I must admit I quite liked Claudio, his imaginative use of the English language was far better than big Ron’s, and far less abusive. Nor did he love himself as much as Moanrhino, and his tactical nous was always a source of great after match discussion, if not amusement. What can you say after a Moanrhino game? Yeah they had ten men behind the ball and were really good at taking freekicks, and corners,  although not always so good at defending them (that was cheap Ed).

Yes I know he has tapped up Edu, but he is real gent being prepared to pay Edu for playing for Brazil, someone has got to subsidise Brazil, and I would rather Valencia did that than the Arsenal. 

After all  we are Fair Play Fans, not ones to hold grudges so why not pay the campaign a visit  and show your support. He is sorely missed.

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