When the international players are away, it's a chance for Statman to come out and play. Club statistician Paul Dutton opens his inbox for another question and answer session. Supporters provide the questions, he attempts to answer.

I'm going to start this Ask Statman with a question about ex-Chelsea striker Peter Bonetti.

No, that is not a ridiculous mistake on my part. Read on and see why not.

The question comes in from Philip Carter who emails from Norway.

He asks for details on the night he knows about when Bonetti (pictured above) played in the forward line at Stamford Bridge.

As it happens, I was in the crowd when the legendary Chelsea keeper showed off is ball skills outside of his penalty area.

The occasion was one of Ron Harris's testimonial matches - the first our record appearance maker was granted, which was on 23 November 1971.

The Chelsea side played Rangers who had travelled down to Scotland and when three outfield player, Chris Garland, John Boyle and Gary Locke were injured and there were no more outfielders on the bench, keeper John Phillips came on in goal for the last 10 minutes, and Bonetti put on the number 2 shirt and went upfield. Chelsea were wearing yellow that night and lost 1-0 when Rangers scored the winner in stoppage time.

That question was one of several Philip sent in together. Another was an enquiry on whether the club has any records on the print run numbers for matchday programmes for games that were postponed.

He explains this information on what are sought-after items would be useful for programme collectors but predicts it won't be able to help. He is correct, the club has no such records.

Two other queries I will throw out to anyone else who can help.

Philip asks who is the longest lived Chelsea player ever and who is the oldest ex-Chelsea player still alive.

At one stage Jimmy Bowie, an inside-forward who signed during World War Two was believed to be the oldest surviving player until he died in August 2000 at the age of 86, but since then I am not aware who could be that man.

Can anyone help with these two questions?

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The next answer I can give relates to another goalkeeper from the Peter Bonetti era. Alex Stepney was signed at a time when Bonetti's future was uncertain but had only a four-month stay before moving to Manchester United where he had a major career.

Stepney played one game before moving to Old Trafford and Ian Burrows wants to know what that game was.

Away at The Dell, Chelsea beat Southampton 3-0 on 3 September 1966 with Bobby Tambling, Peter Osgood and George Graham the scorers. David Webb played for the Saints.

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The next question crosses borders, or more specifically deals with player movement between Chelsea and another blue-shirted team - this time from Scotland's biggest city.

Kieth Laurie has asked how many players have played for both Rangers and Chelsea?

I'm going to limit the list to players who have transferred directly between the clubs, for which the total is 11.

It goes right back to the very beginning with Chelsea's original player-manager in 1905, John Tait Robertson, recruited from Glasgow.

Charles Donaghy who also joined that very first team and there then followed:

Ron Brebner in 1906
Jimmy Stark 1907
Bob Macaulay 1932
John Galloway 1946
Derek Johnstone 1984
Graham Roberts 1989
John Spencer 1992
Nigel Spackman 1992
Brian Laudrup 1998

Going the other way from Chelsea to Rangers have been three players, two of whom on the face of it didn't like it down here as they returned to their former club one year after joining us.

Jimmy Stark departed in 1908 and Rangers legend Derek Johnstone (pictured below)  in 1985. He found it hard to get any first team action with the young Kerry Dixon in hot scoring form.

The third was Tore Andre Flo whose 2000 move to Ibrox for £12 million was a club record sale until Arjen Robben went to Real Madrid.

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I will return to the Scottish theme soon but first to England, and a follow-up to a question discussed in a previous Ask Statman.

I am very grateful to Roger who has emailed on the last time Chelsea fielded an all-English team.

Roger has done his own research and points out that it depends on what is considered English.

He takes us back to 9 March 1992 when all the players that represented Chelsea were born in England, although Gareth Hall (Wales), Kevin Wilson (Northern Ireland) and Andy Townsend (Republic of Ireland) played international football for other countries.

For an 11 born in England who didn't play for other countries, he puts forward a match on 31 August 1982 at home against Wolves when the team was:

Steve Francis, Micky Nutton, Chris Hutchins, Gary Chivers, Mickey Droy, Colin Pates, Clive Walker, John Bumstead, Colin Lee, Bryan 'Pop' Robson, Mike Fillery, with no substitute used.

Roger points out that he has made a quick search and won't be surprised if someone can find a more recent all-English Chelsea team.

On the back of all-English side discussion, Tony, USA raises the idea of a continuous line of Scottish players at Chelsea from Steve Clarke all the way back to the beginning.

This has been checked and indeed from when Clarke played his final game in 1998, moving back through the years a Scot played for Chelsea every season up to and including the very first 1905/06 campaign when we had recruited heavily north of the border.

Since the 1998 Cup Winners' Cup Final, there has been just goalkeeper Neil Sullivan who played for Scotland made eight Chelsea appearances and Steven Watt who made two in 2005.

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Eugene Monetov is a Chelsea fan from Russia. He has emailed me previously with an intriguing trend in Champions League results which we published last season. Eugene has done it again.

He has pointed out that the team which loses in the Champions League semi-finals to that season's winner, becomes the winner the following season. Over the last four years it goes like this:

2006 Barcelona beat Milan in the semi-finals and Milan went on to win the next season.
2007 Milan beat Man United in semi-final and Man United went on to win the next season.
2008 Man United beat Barcelona in semi-final and Barcelona went on to win the next season.
2009 Barcelona beat Chelsea in the semi-final.

Which, if the trend continues this season, results in Chelsea beating the 2011 winners to triumph in Madrid this May.

We'll keep an eye on this one with fingers crossed.

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Back to the Chelsea Scots theme and a request from Christian Stockle. He asks for details of his first Chelsea game when he was around 10-years-old.

He remembers it being at Norwich in the late 1980s and the disappointment of Kerry Dixon being out injured. Christian is also thinks Steve Clarke (below) came on as a second half-substitute for his Chelsea debut.

On that fact his memory is sound. Clarke did play for the first time in the game.

It was on 24 January 1987, a First Division match and the team was:

Tony Godden, Darren Wood, Keith Dublin, Colin Pates (c), Steve Wicks, John Bumstead, Pat Nevin, Nigel Spackman, Gordon Durie, David Speedie (Steve Clarke 75), Mike Hazard.

The Chelsea scorers in a 2-0 draw were Wicks and Bumstead.

The first game emails have been as numerous as ever. Steve Wilson wants some meat on the bones of his first home and away matches.

They were a pre-season friendly at Wimbledon in 1983/84 and Mickey Droy's testimonial against Arsenal.

The Wimbledon game Steve recalls as Kerry Dixon's first in a Chelsea shirt with the recently returned, and short-staying, Alan Hudson in midfield.

It was Kerry's first game, on a date pretty late for a pre-season match - 16 August 1983, We lost 2-1 at Plough Lane, Dixon scored and future Blues keeper Dave Beasant was in goal for Wimbledon.

Droy's testimonial was on 1 November that same year when Second Division Chelsea played First Division Arsenal and won 2-1, with a fitting goal from Droy and another from David Speedie. The crowd was 7,555.

Not necessarily a first game, but Ross Bowra from Sydney, Australia, asks about a Chelsea touring visit to the Showground in Sydney when he as a teenager and saw our players take on an Australian XI

The match was part of what on paper looks an exhausting schedule of 11 matches in four weeks, spread across Australia.

Ross's match was on 23 May 1965 - a 2-2 draw with Frank Upton and Peter Osgood scoring.

The full touring squad was:

Jim Barron, Peter Bonetti, Johnny Boyle, Joe Fascione, George Graham, Ron Harris, Marvin Hinton, John Hollins, Peter Houseman, Jim McCalloig, John Mortimore, Bert Murray, Peter Osgood, Billy Sinclair, Ken Shellito, Jim Smart, Bobby Tambling, Jim Thomson, Frank Upton and Terry Venables.

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Paul Collier wants to know the exact date that former Chelsea manager Billy Birrell died.

It was November 29, 1968 when Birrell was aged 71. He was secretary-manager of Chelsea for 13 years from April 1939 until May 1952. That's a length of managerial service second only to David Calderhead (1907-33).

Scottish born, he played for Raith and Middlesbrough and managed Raith, Bournemouth and QPR before joining Chelsea. He took us to the Wembley wartime League South Cup finals of 1944 (lost 1-3 to Charlton) and 1945 (beat Millwall 2-0). He began Chelsea's youth policy.

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Now for some questions that warrant short answers:

Matt Spyrou wants to know what shirt number Jimmy Greaves wore. For that I refer him to a previous Ask Statman.

David Hudson asks the same question about his namesake, Alan Hudson. Alan wore mainly 8 or 10 on his shirt, roughly with the same frequency, and occasionally wore 7 or 9.

John Moynihan has sent a query from Limerick in Ireland about the final edition of a glossy magazine Chelsea. It is not the current mag of that title but one which ran alongside the newspaper Onside for a few years from September 1996. John wants to know when it ended. Issue 76 (October 2002) was the final one.

Davidge Kimachas asks for an update on our current unbeaten home run as the players begin to put together another healthy total, following on from the record 86-match run that ended last season.

After the win over Man United last weekend, we stand on 27 games without defeat at Stamford Bridge.

Gideon Kigotho from Bermuda, inspired by our recent double header against Bolton, wishes to know about other occasions when Chelsea have played the same team back-to-back in different competitions. For that I refer him to the Pre-Match Briefing for one of those Bolton games, where the info on those occasions is contained.

And the shortest answer of all is reserved for Perry Cosins who asked for confirmation or denial of something he has been told - that Sky Sports pundit Andy Gray was involved at Chelsea at some point in his career.

No!

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Finally I want to make some additions to the list that has been compiled of ex-Chelsea players now playing overseas.

I wish to thank James Burch, Steve Miller and Clayton Freeman who between them have found Sam Dalla Bona (below), now on-loan from Napoli to Greek club Iraklis Salonica; and Mark Bosnich in Australia at Sydney Olympic.

They can be added to the previously compiled:

Jonas Elmer (FC Aarau), Nuno Morais (APOEL), Hernan Crespo (Genoa),Khalid Boulahrouz (Stuttgart), Eidur Gudjohnsen (Monaco), Ben Sahar (Espanyol),Arjen Robben (Bayern Munich), Lassana Diarra (Real Madrid), Joe Tillen (Fram Reykjavik), Sam Tillen (Fram Reykjavik), Sergio Tejera (R.Mallorca), Jiri Jarosik (Krylia S.Samara), Asier Del Horno (Valencia), Enrique De Lucas (Cartagena), Adrian Mutu (Fiorentina), Maniche (Koln), Morten Nielsen (AZ Alkmaar), Felipe Oliveira (Braga), Claude Makelele (PSG), Ricardo Quaresma (Inter), Jesper Gronkjaer, (Copenhagen), Metaja Kezman (Zneit St Petersburg), Juan Sebastian Veron (Estudiantes), Rati Aleksidze (Gyori ETO), Marco Ambrosio (Reggiana), Valerio Di Cesare (Vicenza), Christian Panucci (Parma), Mikael Forrsell (Hanover 96), Mbark Boussouffa (Anderlecht), Tiago (Juventus), Claudio Pizarro (Werder Bremen), Andriy Shevchenko (Dynamo Kiev), Mineiro (Schalke), Fabio Paim (Real Massama).

And there we must finish this time, but if you have any follow-up contributions, corrections or new statistics related questions, please email statman@chelseafc.com

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