Playing in Europe is financially beneficial, but Mike Ticher remembers when money wasn't the driving force
Chelsea are in Europe. Ho hum. Once I would have camped out overnight to see them play Slovan Bratislava, or even IB Vestmannaeyja. Maybe it will all seem different when it starts, but somehow the prospect of those Thursday night specials now fills me with little more than a nagging feeling that I’ve got better things to spend £21 on. European club competitions in their heyday were pure theatre. But one by one, for good reasons and bad, all the elements that made them so special have been leached away.