When Chelsea won their first silverware of note with the First Division title in 1955, the club went on a run of seeing each manager that was brought in to replace the last winning something. That all came to an end when Eddie McCreadie took over in 1975, with both Ken Shellito and Danny Blanchflower failing to win anything. They thought it might change when World Cup winner Geoff Hurst got the manager’s job, but it wasn’t to be and neither could Bobby Gould ensure success. It took until John Neal arrived for any sort of meaningful trophy to be won and even then it wasn’t quite the sort of the thing that the Blues would’ve wanted.
John Neal’s Honours as Chelsea Manager
| Season | League Titles | Domestic Cups | European/International Cups |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1983/84 | Second Division | – | – |
John Neal as a Player
John Neal was born in Seaham, County Durham on the 13th of April 1932. A hard-tackling full-back, he played for Hull City for seven seasons prior to joining up with King’s Lynn in 1956. He only stayed there for a season, however, and returned to the Football League with Swindon Town in 1957. Having played 60 times for Hull City in the league and scoring one goal, he went on to improve on that with Swindon thanks to his 91 league appearances and two goals. That was enough to persuade Aston Villa that he was the man for them, with the Villains pushing for the Football League Second Division title at the time.
Neal helped them to win that trophy, which might well have helped him in his managerial career. Having helped Aston Villa gain promotion to the First Division, Neal also assisted them in winning the League Cup a year later; the first time that the new competition had been played. In the November of 1962 Neal signed for Southend United, which is where he spend the remainder of his playing career. He left the club in 1965 and spent thee years learning what he could about coaching, preparing himself for a career in management that was effectively just around the corner. His playing career was decent, his managerial one would be better.
Becoming a Manager
In 1968, John Neal was appointed as the manager of Welsh side Wrexham. He took over from Alvan Williams, who was responsible for bringing him to the club in the first place as his assistant. In his first season in charge he took the club to ninth in the Fourth Division, getting them promoted after finishing second the following season. Wrexham won the Welsh Cup in 1972, which allowed the club to play in the following season’s European Cup Winners’ Cup, drawing 3-3 with Hajduk Split but being knocked out on goal difference. Two years on and he defeated the likes of Middlesbrough, Crystal Palace and Southampton in the FA Cup.
It was another European Cup Winners’ Cup for the Welsh side in 1976, losing 2-1 in the quarter-finals to RSC Anderlecht, who went on to win it. A season on and Neal’s team continued to punch above its weight, defeating Tottenham Hotspur in the League Cup and Sunderland in the FA Cup, both of whom were in the First Division at the time. In 1977 he was appointed as the manager of Middlesbrough, replacing Jack Charlton. Meanwhile, at Chelsea, successive managerial disappointments had seen the club slide into the Second Division, with a very real possibility of relegation down to the Third Division looming.
Rescuing Chelsea
Having spent four years at Middlesbrough, Neal was offered the manager’s job at Chelsea. He succeeded Geoff Hurst, with few people at the London club enthused by his appointment. When they lost 6-0 to Rotherham, supporters began to call for Neal’s head not long after he’d taken over. In spite of the fact that the Blues defeated all-conquering Liverpool 2-0 in the FA Cup, ‘Neal Must Go!’ banners started appearing at Stamford Bridge. When Rotherham left Chelsea with a 1-1 draw at the end of the following season, boos rang out and it looked like they were going to be relegated to the Third Division for the first time in the club’s history.
A goal from Clive Walker at Bolton Wanderers averted the disaster, with club Chairman Ken Bates remaining confident in Neal’s ability. In spite of the fact that the coffers were all but dry, Bates found some money to allow the signings of some bargains, with the likes of Eddie Niedzwiecki, Nigel Spackman, Pat Nevin and Kerry Dixon arriving, with David Speedie having been signed a year before. Neal was thus able to get his players playing the type of football that he wanted, with a balance between a solid defence and a fluid attack, seeing the Blues win the Second Division title at the end of the 1983-1984 season.
It wasn’t just that they won the title, but the manner in which they did it that made Neal such an important part of Chelsea’s history. They lost just four league games, getting back in to the top-flight for the first time in five years. He cemented the club’s place in the First Division, finishing sixth in the first season and making it to the semi-final of the League Cup. They were challenging for a European place, although the Heysel Stadium Disaster, in which a group of Liverpool supporters charged Juventus fans at the dilapidated stadium, causing a wall to collapse and 39 Italians to lose their lives, meant that they wouldn’t have got to play in it anyway.
Ill Health Draws Neal’s Chelsea Managerial Career to a Premature End
When the 1984-1985 season drew to a close, Neal had turned Chelsea from being something of a laughing stock into one of the exciting clubs in England. He had also nurtured the career of Paul Conoville, who was the first black player at Chelsea and had suffered horrendous abuse. As the club finally looked to be back to its best, Neal’s poor health caught up with him. A heavy smoker, he decided it was the right time to step down, with John Hollins moving from being a player-coach to taking charge of the team. Within a year, Neal had undergone heart surgery, having a triple-heart bypass.
In the wake of his retirement at the manager, with the same fans that had booed him years before being devastated to see him go, Neal was appointed to the Chelsea Board of Directors. Later in his life, Neal returned to live in North Wales, which is where he died in the November of 2014 at the age of 82.