Palo Alto - General

Chelsea Central - Rose and Crown

"Chelsea Central" Friday night will be the Rose and Crown, Palo Alto.  We have made arrangements with the owner and he is looking forward to hosting the Chelsea faithful for a boisterous couple of nights while we are in town.  The pub is not quite as big as Fado's in Chicago but has a great "British" feel to it with a good selection of beers.  They serve standard (American) pub fare until 9pm but there are other places nearby to eat if you prefer something different.  Kids are welcome in the pub until 9pm so you will want to make arrangements if you have any Chelsea Youth with you.  Take a look at their dinner menu as well as some photos.  The manager has also told us that while he doesn't normally do breakfast, if there is a demand and some suggestions he is happy to put on a breakfast menu for us.  Send us your thoughts if you would like to see a breakfast on at the Rose and Crown.  Full English all round?

Photo 1 - Photo 2 - Photo 3 - Photo 4 - Photo 5 - Photo 6 - Photo 7 - Photo 8

San Francisco to LA...

For those of you driving from Palo Alto to LA we have received an offer from a publican on Highway 1...

Hello -

I wanted to extend an invitation to all Blues supporters traveling on Hwy 1 from Palo Alto to LA to join us at The Maiden Publick House in Big Sur. The pub is 26 miles south of Carmel on Hwy 1 in the Village Shops. It's a cozy little pub that features over 100 different beers.

I'll be more than happy to host a particular event but most of all I want to give traveling football fans a pit stop in a proper pub that loves Chelsea.

Please let me know if I can provide any additional information to post this message.

Kind Regards,
D Morrissey
www.themaidenpub.com
 

Friday 13th

Misc.

Friday evening in the Rose and Crown you will be able to purchase t-shirts and raffle tickets as well as collect/pay for your bus tickets for the LA games.

Saturday 14th

Breakfast at the Rose and Crown!

The pub are serving a fine breakfast for us so as a gesture for their putting up with us all weekend we encourage you to breakfast at the pub (and maybe a hair of the dog from Friday night? ;-)

Pixar Studio Tour

There are limited spaces left for a tour of the Pixar studios.  Please contact Beth Wild (beth @ tx-blies . com) if you are interested in going.  There is no charge for the tour itself but it is first come, first serve and you are responsible for paying your way there and back.

Misc.

Saturday morning in the Rose and Crown you will be able to purchase t-shirts and raffle tickets as well as collect/pay for your bus tickets for the LA games.

Tailgate

For logistical reasons we will not be holding a tailgate at Stanford so we encourage you to have your tailgate at the Rose and Crown pub and walk with us to the stadium for the game.  Where better to socialize with your blue brothers and sisters, not to mention practice all your songs before the game?  The good folks at the stadium have asked us to let you know that there is no alcohol allow or sold inside the stadium itself.

Getting to Stanford Stadium

Follow the crowd!  We are told the stadium is a leisurely walk of a tad over a mile from the Rose and Crown so why not set off a little early and (enjoy a stroll and a sing-song.  If you would rather take a cab they are available from outside the Rose and Crown.

Chelsea Vs Club America, KO 6pm!

Stanford Stadium Video Camera Policy

Cameras/Video Equipment – Cameras and video recorders are permitted inside the stadium as long as the lens length is less than three and a half inches (3.5'"). Lights, monopods and tripods are prohibited. Guests may not reproduce or rebroadcast any film or photographs shot at the stadium without the express written consent of Stanford University and the NCAA. Stanford University asks that guests please be courteous when taking pictures and avoid obstructing the view of others.

After the match you are encouraged to head back to the Rose and Crown pub to chat about the game and meet some more of your fellow blues.

Sunday 15th

Adidas Store Signing

Chelsea and Adidas have decided to restrict the Adidas store signing to a youth soccer organization they are both working with. A surprise to us all and I’m sorry this does not provide us any access. This was decided late last week.  However, if you would like a chance at a ticket to the event text 'BLUES

Breakfast at the Rose and Crown!

This is a travel day for those coming from Palo Alto, but the pub are serving another fine breakfast, so why not line your stomach with some fine fare before heading for LA?.

First Drinks at Yankee Doodle's

As people trickle into LA we will see you at some point at Yankee Doodles I am sure.  Also, Sunday evening, make sure you look for the t-shirts and raffle tickets being sold in Yankee Doodles as well as collect and pay for your bus ticket for those that have not done so yet.

LA - General

Chelsea Central - Yankee Doodles

"Chelsea Central" for the entire time we are in LA will be the fine establishment of Yankee Doodles Bar and Grill in Santa Monica at:

1410 3rd Street Promenade,
Santa Monica, CA 90401

We have made arrangements with the owner and he is looking forward to hosting the Chelsea faithful for the week, along with several exciting events we are still planning, so watch this space!

Things to do in and around LA

Many thanks to a group of individuals who have complied a comprehensive list of things you can do in and around LA while there (beyond propping the bar up at Yankee Doodles ;-)

Practice Sessions

The practice session at the Home Depot Centre on the 16th is open. However HDC have not released any information on what that exactly means. Furthermore the 20th has been announced as a press day only.  We will not be doing anything around either of these events so if you plan on attending the open practice you will need to make your own plans.  We have also been told by Chelsea that other than the Monday session at the HDC, ALL practice sessions will be closed and secure.  You will NOT be able to scam your way in and all viewing has been blocked.  Please respect Jose's wishes and not try and get into a closed practice.

The only possible access you might have to a practice session is Thursday if we are able to pull off a private session for Chelsea supporters.  This is still not confirmed but when it is there will be a limited number of spaces available on a first come, first serve basis.  To reserve your place please drop a line to Transport@ChelseaInAmerica.com with your name, e-mail address and how many tickets you would want.  They will be $15 each which will include the bus ride to UCLA.  Note that the only way to get in is on our bus so you can't make your own way there.  Finally, keep an eye on this web site and register for the hot news updates by sending a note to TourNews@ChelseaInAmerica.com.

Monday 16th

There is a public (free) practice session at the Home Depot Centre today.  Keep an eye on the Home Depot Center web site for more information as we are not planning anything official around this event.  Being open and free this is likely to be pretty busy and will hopefully feature not just a Galaxy and Chelsea practice but also hopefully the official Beckham unveiling.

Also keep an eye on this web site as we are working on a possible closed practice session for Chelsea supporters later in the week.  If we can pull this off then details will be right here (or sign up for the "Hot News" alerts by sending a note to TourNews@ChelseaInAmerica.com).

Cathy's Karaoke

Come join us in warming up our singing voices at Yankee Doodle's Monday evening while Chelsea singing legend (I dare you to challenge her to a Chelsea song competition!) will lead the Chelsea quir.

Tuesday 17th

We have reserved buses to take us from YDs to the stadium and back and a tailgate.  Please note that we are no longer taking reservations for the buses/tailgate because we will not be online to receive them, but you are welcome to show up at Yankee Doodles at the time shown below to see if there are any seats available, or at the stadium if you want to tailgate only.  Furthermore, please be prompt for the bus as we will be clearing waitlisted seats 30 minutes before the bus departs!!

Tailgate Location

We have been given the following directions when we (the buses) arrive at the HDC.  This is all we have but hopefully it will be enough to help you find us.

• Enter gate A
• Bus will U-turn and park along driveway A exit lanes and drop off
• We will walk to the top of the drive, go left to the north side, then right to our area.

Hopefully we won't be that hard to spot ;-)

Home Depot Center Camera Policy

Still Photography
Unless otherwise specified by the teams and/or event officials/management, guests may not bring professional photographic equipment in to the facility.

Guests are also prohibited from engaging in commercial photography of any kind.

The following is a partial list of the prohibited camera equipment:
• Flash photography
• Monopods or tripods
• Cameras with interchangeable lenses
• Cameras with lenses greater than 3? inches in length

Teams and/or event officials/management may have additional rules further restricting or prohibiting photography.

Audio / Video Recording Devices

Guests may not bring any types of audio / video recording devices in to the facility. These devices include, but are not limited to, video camcorders, audio recording devices, etc.

You are all invited back to Yankee Doodle's after the match if you have any voices left!

Wednesday 18th

Chelsea Quiz

We are aiming for 8pm at Yankee Doodles. Teams will be 2 people. The first part of the quiz will be questions that are more about the last couple of years, and so if you are new to Chelsea, with a little extra knowledge you should be challenged but not out of your league on this part, there will also be a picture quiz, a mixture of challenges for the new supporter and the veteran, and then another part for all levels of supporters. At this point, any newer supporter can turn in their quiz and call it done (and if you are a vet, please be honest and get the new supporters a chance to win something).  We will be asking the "veterans" amongst us to keep playing, as there is a final part to the quiz for those supporters that have followed the team for more than the last couple of years. At the end there will be prizes for both categories of supporters.  Yes, there will be prizes, and hopefully we will have lots of people that want to play.

Thursday 19th

Chelsea Supporters Only Practice

We have finally been confirmed for the practice at UCLA but have filled our allocation.  If you would still like to go you are welcome to come down to Yankee Doodles before the buses depart and get on the waitlist, but we are not taking any more requests over the Internet.

Friday 20th

Chelsea supporters 5-a-side tournament

As part of the festivities surrounding the tour, we have decided to have a soccer tournament!   The format of the tournament will be dependent on numbers, but the focus of it is to meet fellow Chelsea fans that also live in the US or anywhere else for that matter!

Teams will all be Co-ed, and will be split by ability and also location. Although it may be easier to pick your own teams, that would defeat this purpose! Therefore the teams will be picked to represent a wide a range of locations as possible! This is meant to be a fun event, so ALL abilities welcome!!

Don't forget your shin pads !

We are still aiming for Friday July 20 but now are looking at a start between 4 and 4:30pm in South Bay (and are looking at providing transport for a nominal cost). I know this is not ideal, but there will likely be activities on the Thursday night and Friday afternoon/evening will likely be the open practice. It will help blow off a few cobwebs from the night before and also you’ll feel like you’ve earned your beers that night!

To start off with, before we search for a field and all the necessary equipment, we’d like to get an idea of numbers that would be interested in playing.

Hopefully we will have enough for 4 – 6 five a-side teams, that will have a squad of 8 players per team. That way people can play for as long…or little as they like!

I really hope that we manage to get this going, and I look forward to making many more Chelsea friends over this summer.  If you are interested in playing or helping with the tournament please can you send me an email: eliotyaxley(at)yahoo.com

Please state in your email:

• Name
• Ability (on scale of 1 – 5) remember there will be no pro’s here, so if you play regularly and are pretty fit you are a 5. 1 means you have 2 left feet!
• Preferred Position
• Home Location
• Play or Help?
• Age – below 15 or 15 and older. We try and accommodate younger players in a separate game, if the response is good enough.
• Male/Female

I look forward to hearing from you all soon!

Cheers,
Eliot

Updated info on the 5-a-side...

Dear Football/Soccer Players and Volunteers,

We have had an overwhelming response to the soccer tournament. So far we have about 50 - 60 people that wish to play. Amazing!

The tournament will have a wide range of abilities, and all teams will be as evenly split as i can make them, based on your ratings!

We have had a little trouble sorting out details due to the number of players and logistics such as a pitch and goals.

However after many phone calls to the LA soccer community, we seem to have the event ready!

We tried to get a pitch in Santa Monica, however unfortunately this just did not work out. With so many people, we need 3 mini pitches to make sure everyone gets a game.

Event details are:

LOCATION

1935 Manhattan Beach Blvd, Redondo Beach, CA
http://www.southbaysports.com/location.asp#aviation
This is a great facility, and is synthetic field turf. I would recommend either wearing trainers/sneakers or molded soccer cleats.

TIME

We have the field from 12:30 - 4:30.
We will be running a bus from Santa Monica, so when you confirm you want to play, please also let me know if you would like to take the bus.
Time of bus and pick up location is yet to be determined. They are very expensive in LA, so we are exploring our options.

THINGS TO BRING

Sneakers/trainers/molded cleats
1 Blue and 1 white T-shirt (we may have shirts and or bibs, but just in case...)
Lots of fluids - no alcohol is allowed at the facility. There are vending machines that sell water and gatorade, but worth bringing your own. We will be trying to sort out large coolers with ice.
shin pads/guards. Please can everyone who has these bring them and any extra that they may have.
sunscreen
A smiley face!

Some things to note....

Getting a football pitch in LA is not cheap, especially as you need also to get insurance for the field! We are working on a number of options right now to keep the cost down. Once final costs are know, I will let everyone know, but we are looking at about $25 a person.

For 4 hours of fun, hopefully this is OK. We understand that many of you have spent a lot already getting to LA etc. but I hope the $25 doesn't put anyone off.

The most expensive parts of the event are actually the insurance and the bus, however I am working on trying to reduce these.

More details to follow on this.

NEXT STEPS

Please email me and confirm you are interested in playing. Once I get this list, I will pick the teams. Teams will be announced on the day, to reduce any pre tournament sabotage! Plus it'll give me something to do on the plane.

I will be travelling to LA on the Wednesday, so please email me as soon as possible.

Thanks for being patient with the details of this tournament, it has been harder than expected to get organised.

Looking forward to seeing you all in LA.
Cheers,

Eliot
 

Friday Evening Event

Neil Barnett Plus Guest (fingers crossed)

For those of you who watch Chelsea TV on Setanta you will know Neil Barnett (a.k.a. "Spy") *is* Mr. Chelsea when it comes to not only TV and interviews but also knowledge of Chelsea - I dare you to challenge him in a fact!  Neil always travels with the team and has promised to try and join us on Friday evening for a Q&A and general mingle/chat.  Last year in Chicago Neil brought Charlie Cooke with him (Chelsea legend from the 70s) and we had a fantastic evening as they both answered questions and told stories (and bring your hankies you old-un's as the Ozzie stories last year really did bring a lump to the throat of a lot of tough old Chelsea die-hards!).  Neil has told us he will join us Friday and we hope he will have a guest or two in tow, although topping Charlie Cooke will be something!

Saturday 21st - Game Day!

We have reserved buses to take us from YDs to the stadium and back and a tailgate.  Please note that we are no longer taking reservations for the buses/tailgate because we will not be online to receive them, but you are welcome to show up at Yankee Doodles at the time shown below to see if there are any seats available, or at the stadium if you want to tailgate only.  Furthermore, please be prompt for the bus as we will be clearing waitlisted seats 30 minutes before the bus departs!!

Tailgate Location

We have been given the following directions when we (the buses) arrive at the HDC.  This is all we have but hopefully it will be enough to help you find us.

• Enter gate A
• Bus will U-turn and park along driveway A exit lanes and drop off
• We will walk to the top of the drive, go left to the north side, then right to our area.

Hopefully we won't be that hard to spot ;-)  Also, see the bus directions map we were given...

You are all invited back to YDs after the match to chat about how much fun it was to see Ashley Cole shut down Becks and JT eat Landycakes for breakfast.!

Sunday 22nd

Hollywood United Charity Game

Hollywood United will play a celebrity soccer match to benefit Survivors of Torture.  Players will include Steve Jones, Jimmy-John Louis, Santiago Cabrera, Costas Mandylor, Vinny Jones, Alexi Lalas, Martin Vasquez, Frank LeBouef, Eric Wynalda, Barry Venison, Richard Gough, among others.

Proceeds from the event will benefit PTV, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing free medical care, psychological evaluation and other essential social services to alleviate the suffering and health consequences of torture victims living in Los Angeles.

For more information check out their MySpace page or the official announcement.

Other Events

Giants Baseball

Anybody who fancies a little bit of Americana, boys of summer and all that may be interested to attend a San Francisco Giants baseball game.  Games during the time we will be in northern California include:

Friday July 13th at 7:15 vs  LA Dodgers
Saturday July 14th at 12:55 vs LA Dodgers
Sunday July 15th at 1:05 vs LA Dodgers. 

The best way to get tickets or more information is through the San Francisco Giants web site or one of the ticket clearing houses such as Stub Hub.  We recommend you get tickets soon as as Dodgers games will sell out.

 If you fancy going but want some company then there are some supporters interested so maybe you can all get together and show those baseball fans a song or two!  The best way is to jump onto the Chelsea In American bulletin board and post to see who else is interested.

And on the Drawing Board...

We are working on a list of other events for the week and will announce information as soon as it is available.

• Quiz Night
• Tailgate
• Meet and greet players
• Beach soccer
• 5-a-side soccer tournament
• Raffle
• Suggestions?

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