When people think of the late-Sixties and early-Seventies Chelsea, Ossie captures its style, swagger, and, ultimately, its self-destructiveness. He remains the club’s fifth-highest goal scorer with 150 from 380 appearances and played a huge part in winning two major trophies, but his talent warranted a better reward than a handful of England caps and three medals earned with the Blues and Southampton.

It is the more vulnerable moments that make the brash player’s memoir Ossie – King of Stamford Bridge (Mainstream, 2002) intriguing, however. Chief among these is his early experience of the broken leg sustained during a League Cup third-round tie at Division Two Blackpool on 5 October 1966.

Ossie was one of several former youth-team players breaking into Tommy Docherty’s ‘Diamonds’ team. He was 19, lithe, athletic, fast – dribbling past defenders like an eel through reeds – with six goals in 12 appearances that season.

‘Their confident young defender Emlyn Hughes was on my case right from the start,’ the striker recalled, ‘and after he tackled me from behind I was determined to give him a kick back just to show him I was no pushover.

‘The chance came as we both raced towards a 50/50 ball. Our legs crunched. I heard it, Emlyn heard it, and the crowd heard it as the bone above my ankle snapped. The crowd had fallen silent in anticipation of the tackle and as my leg splintered the sickening noise seemed to reverberate around the ground. I imagined everyone closing their eyes and wincing as one.

‘Putting my hand down to my leg, I could feel the bone through my sock and I waved weakly for help. Emlyn picked himself up and walked away without a glance behind him. Our players shouted and swore at him but he didn’t respond. Norman Medhurst, son of trainer Harry, was with us that day and he knelt down beside me and cradled my left leg. “Does it hurt Ossie?”

‘“No Norman, you’ve got the wrong leg”.’

Noting ‘many a player has not come back from a broken leg due to badly set breaks', Osgood wrote: ‘I was operated on that night, put in plaster, dosed up with painkillers and fit enough to join the players and officials on the train journey back to London in the morning. Throughout the ordeal I had not removed my Chelsea shirt.’

Doubts about his future and immobility during an eight-month recuperation hit him hard and he turned to the bottle, losing the slim physique of the teenage forward. Against advice, he played golf still in plaster and reopened the break. And he fretted when Docherty bought another striker, Tony Hateley, acting rashly.

‘Insecurity ate away inside of me,’ he revealed. ‘At one point I called a national newspaper and told them I thought I could never fit into the Chelsea side again.’

He was angling for another club to come in for him. ‘The only manager that called,’ Ossie revealed, ‘was Tommy Doc himself, demanding to know what I was playing at. “Why are you saying things like that to the papers?”’

Thankfully Ossie did return for the Blues; a different, less balletic player, but powerful, canny, and still a delight to watch. He and new manager Dave Sexton were polar opposites, but the player respected the coach. Ossie remembered vital pep-talks, such as before extra time at Wembley, with the 1970 FA Cup final in the balance.

‘You’ve got ’em now,’ Sexton enthused. ‘Look at them. They thought they had it and we snatched it from them. Their heads are down. You’re in the driving seat, believe me.’

The game finished 2-2 but Osgood was impressed. ‘I think if Dave hadn’t geed us up in the way he did, Leeds would have gone straight through us in that added period,’ he wrote.

The manager held off the battle talk during half-time of the replay that followed at Old Trafford, though, despite Leeds’ 1-0 advantage.

‘We didn’t need lifting,’ remembered Osgood. ‘It was all what they had done to us, and what we would do to them. There was a myth at the time that Jackie Charlton had a little black book with the names of players in, players he was waiting to damage in some way.

‘"When I score," I said to anyone that might have been listening, “I’m going to rip his black book off him and laugh in his face as I write my name in it.”’

Half an hour later, Osgood’s iconic diving header restored parity, before Dave Webb scored the winner. Charlton, black book and all, slunk away without collecting his medal.

Sexton was, though, often infuriated by his brilliant squad’s lifestyle choices. ‘We had our reputation as social animals and we liked to live up to it,’ Osgood admitted. ‘Many a time we’d be discussing which nightclub or pub to move on to when players from other teams would be shaking their heads and wondering why we were not going home to our wives.’

Nevertheless, the team bonding was exceptional, and celebrity patronage added to the sensation. ‘I walked into the dressing room one Saturday after a match,’ Ossie recalled, ‘and I saw Eddie Mac [McCreadie] sitting on the bench. His glasses were perched on the end of his nose, he was puffing on a cigarette and in deep conversation with a familiar-looking man dressed smartly in a polo neck and slacks. “Ossie, this is Steve McQueen”.’

Such was Osgood’s Chelsea – the most intoxicating of clubs.

By Rick Glanvill, first published in 2019

We will continue to tell stories of the legendary Peter Osgood in the lead up to the 20th anniversary of his passing on Sunday. You can read and watch more on 'The King of Stamford Bridge' Peter Osgood here.