globalfans Danish swirl-wind: Despite only being set up last August, the club has seen a healthy growth in numbers

CHELSEA IN DENMARK

NAME: MARTIN ALETH LIVES: COPENHAGEN, DENMARK OCCUPATION: BUSINESSMAN

Who founded your club and how many members do you have? Me, Frederik Bach and Mads Oddershede founded it in August 2010. When we started we had a group on Facebook with 100 fans. Today we have a fan page with 1,400 supporters and a for Danish supporters. The other key factor to our success has been website with True Blue membership at 830 members. a lot of voluntary work and people are willing to get involved to help this supporters’ club grow. How has the club changed since it started? At first, there were just the three of us trying to establish a club What’s the best thing about being in your club? through a website. Now there are 15 people in the Danmark The free beers at our bar! And that a lot of Chelsea fans around the Supporters’ Club organisation. Most of them write articles online country can meet and discuss Chelsea online. It can be hard to find and we’ve a designer and developer working on a new website. other Blues supporters to talk to in Denmark. I think we provide a Also, we have a partnership with the Danish Thomas Cook. In platform for all Danish Chelsea fans to come closer together. co-operation with them, we arrange tours to Stamford Bridge, tickets and hotels for games. Who are the most popular players past and present at your club? Jesper Gronkjaer is, of course, very popular and is the reason a Where do you meet to watch games? lot of Danes became Chelsea supporters. Then , We meet at our main bar in Copenhagen – Cafe Guldhornene – a , and are very popular of big, old school pub with two floors. They are 100 per cent dedicated course. And it seems like new signing David Luiz is growing on us to the Danmark Supporters’ Club, with a big Chelsea logo on the really fast. wall and they give out free beer every time Chelsea score! We also have a bar in Aarhus, the second biggest city in Denmark. Did you do anything special when Chelsea played FC Copenhagen in Denmark? Why is there so much support for Chelsea where you are? A lot of the members went to the hotel and airport to meet the Looking online, there should be around 20,000 people in Denmark players. Our bar was open three days in row from 10am to 5am who support Chelsea and we only have 800 members, so I think and was full most of the time. we can do a lot better. Our plan has been to provide a lot of news on the website and make a platform for debate and involvement • To feature on this page email [email protected]

Prized: Chris Bignell, top right, and his BRIDGE treasures collection, including a pic of him meeting the keeper cream of the cat memorabilia Chris Bignell has supported Chelsea for of them signed by the man himself. The more than 50 years and first became an programmes alone from games the England admirer of Peter Bonetti when meeting international played in total more than 700. him at his first testimonial match, against As you can see, Chris also has some rarer Belgian side Standard Liege in May 1971. items. A signed plate emblazoned with Two weeks later, we lifted our first-ever images of keepers Bonetti, , European trophy by beating Real Madrid in Kevin Hitchcock, Dmitri Kharine, Ed de the Cup Winners’ Cup Final and Bonetti’s Goey and is a particular hero status was cemented for Chris. favourite. However, the England shirt The matchday programme from that signed by Bonetti, and testimonial and a photograph taken , the three keepers from with The Cat marked the start of a huge the 1966 World Cup-winning squad, is collection of Bonetti memorabilia which perhaps the most sought-after item of now contains thousands of items, many memorabilia.

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