A blog of two halves

Chelsea pre-season prep in Portland

You may not have heard of the Women’s International Champions Cup. Indeed, you may never hear of it again.

18 August 2022
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Chelsea will participate in the 2022 Women's International Champions Cup. PICTURE: GETTY IMAGES

You may not have heard of the Women's International Champions Cup. Indeed, you may never hear of it again.

But it's being staged in Portland, Oregon, with Chelsea Women flying out to the west coast of the States to play European title-holders Lyon.

Meanwhile the local side in Portland play a Mexican team, with the winners slugging it out at the weekend to supposedly determine who's the best team in the world.

Unfortunately, time differences mean that the games take place in the small hours of the morning for potential UK audiences.

Whether this is ideal preparation for the season is debatable, but after the Blues return they do have a couple of friendlies lined up against Man City and Spurs, both at Kingsmeadow, with tickets now on sale.

Chelsea play City on Friday 26 August at 7pm, then play Tottenham on Sunday 28 August, with tickets for a fiver (£3 for U20s or over 65s).

The surge of interest in the women's game following England's Euros success is something Chelsea want to build on, with the Blues' marketing department working to sell season tickets and seats for individual matches.

Staging the first full, proper Women's Super League game of the new campaign on 11 September at the 42,000-seat Stamford Bridge, rather than the 3,000-seat Kingsmeadow, shows real intent.

But it will be the bread-and-butter games in the smaller stadium, including the league and FA Cup fixtures, that will reveal whether the national wave of passion for the game has translated into local support.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.

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Tim Harrison

Tim is our Chelsea FC blogger.

He also writes our Shepherds Bush Cricket Club match reports during the football close season.

Tim has been writing Chelsea match reports since the late 1980s for newspapers and, more recently, websites.

When he first reported on the Blues, the press box was a metal cage suspended over the lip of the old west stand - and you reached it via a precarious walkway over the heads of the fans.

But he has been a Chelsea fan since his father took an excited seven-year-old to watch Chelsea v Manchester United in the mid 1960s... and covered his ears every time the chanting got too ripe.

In July 2005 he wrote The Rough Guide to Chelsea, published by Penguin, which sold 15,000 copies.

His favourite player of all time is Charlie Cooke, the mazy winger who lit up Chelsea's left wing in the 60s and 70s.

When he isn't watching the Blues, Tim acts, paints, writes and researches local history.

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