“Palpable Discord”: Reliving the dark times of Chelsea’s 2015/16 season

“Palpable Discord” is your opportunity to relive a year you would most likely rather forget: Chelsea’s historically pathetic title-defending 2015/16 season.

“Palpable Discord: a year of drama and dissent at Chelsea” takes you through Chelsea’s 2015/16 season as experienced by blogger, podcaster and lifelong Blue, Clayton Beerman. The book is a near-weekly chronicle of Beerman’s blogs and barroom conversations as he wrestles with the incomprehensible: Jose Mourinho’s downfall amid Chelsea’s aborted title defense.

Reading “Palpable Discord” is much like the second time you read the “Harry Potter” series. When you know how everything ends, you key in on things you did not notice the first time around. Things you thought were incidental  when you saw them develop in real-time(“Snape said what? Carneiro did what??”) now take on immense, perhaps inflated significance as you see all the signs point to the now-obvious conclusion.

Beerman does a strong job keeping his narrative true to how we lived the season. He resists the temptation to make events look predictable – or even logical – just because we know what happened. He also avoids any sort of moralizing of the “If only Eden / Eva / Jose hadn’t….” variety.

Most of all, he does not make connections where they do not belong simply to match causes with the eventual effect. He does not peddle any conspiracy theories – grand or petty – of self-sabotage, back-stabbing or manipulation.

Beerman is an unabashed Mourinho backer, and this creates the greatest tension between the reader and the book. Beerman is a lifelong Blue. He endured decades “when we were s—t.” He knows that fortitude and steadfast devotion were Chelsea values long before the club gauged success with titles and 8-figure transfer fees. Someone who once cheered Chelsea’s promotion to the First Division can’t help but carry a debt of gratitude to the winningest coach in club history.

The reverse side of that gratitude is a blind spot for Mourinho’s role in Chelsea’s woes and his own downfall. The strongest statement Beerman can muster is “Jose was not blameless.” Beerman places Mourinho over, above and outside Chelsea’s locker room. His attempts to exonerate Mourinho produce the paradoxical impression that the greatest strategic mind in Chelsea history looks like a passive traveler in his own career.

Mourinho didn’t lose the locker room – the players (who are “replaceable,” unlike Jose) gave up on him. The team didn’t stop playing for the manager – they stopped playing for the club. Mourinho didn’t alienate the Chelsea hierarchy – they “failed to go out… and back the manager.” Events and people beyond his control conspired against Mourinho, and he paid the consequences.

If you’re looking for juicy anonymous quotes and unnamed sources from deep in Stamford Bridge, “Palpable Discord” is not your book. If you want to know what it’s like to live a season as a Chelsea fan in the stadium, pubs and living rooms of west London, let Beerman be your guide.

Beerman speaks to and with every fan on a barstool or couch. When Twitter feeds and comments sections are often nothing but vitriolic drivel, “Palpable Discord” is a reminder of how fans should experience and talk about sports.

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For those of us who are lifelong sports fans but relatively new to Chelsea, we can relate to Beerman’s experiences because we’ve lived it. In places like Boston or Cleveland that, like Chelsea, waited so long to taste success. And in places like Buffalo, where we have had all of the discord and none of the victory.

“Palpable Discord: a year of drama and dissent at Chelsea” is available at Amazon in paperback or for Kindle.