Brian Viner: Wizard of Os casts his spell on a different era

The flamboyant Chelsea legend epitomises the colourful side of 1970s football but was still snubbed by England

Peter Osgood is many things, not least one third of the answer to a favourite trivia question of mine: which three former England internationals have three Os in their surnames? (You have until the final paragraph to figure out the other two).

He is also an enduring idol of Chelsea fans; the last man to score in every round of the FA Cup including the final; a former publican; a former bankrupt publican; and the man whose extravagant sideburns come into focus whenever football-lovers look back at the 1970s. Indeed, of all the images that evoke that great decade, the Osgood sideburns are right up there with Chopper bikes, the three-day week, Bohemian Rhapsody, the Rumble in the Jungle and Angela Rippon dancing on Morecambe and Wise. I ask him what happened to them? "They started to go a bit ginger, mate," he says, with distaste.

We are having lunch in a pub, The Highwayman, near Cirencester. At 55, Osgood looks in pretty good nick, although he does have a pronounced limp, the legacy of a 16-year career in an era of heavy pitches and heavy tackles. Heavy, but honest. "This shirt-pulling," he says, "it's disgraceful. We used to kick and elbow and nut people, but we never pulled shirts."

Later, he is speaking at a dinner at the nearby Royal Agricultural College, which makes it even more of a shame that he has not brought his sideburns with him; they would have made excellent examples of what can be achieved with no fertiliser but careful cultivation.

He makes, he reckons, more than 100 after-dinner speeches a year. "It's a lot of travelling, mate. I went to Bermuda a few weeks ago, then it might be Swindon, then Dubai. I'd like to do 10 or 12 a year, that would be perfect, give me a chance to play some golf, go horse racing, spend time with the wife, watch my boy Darren playing football... but it don't work out like that."

The best of his peers, he says, are Tommy Docherty ("love him to death"), Duncan McKenzie, "and what's his name, used to play for Burnley, Steve Kindon. Frank Worthington does it, Chopper [Ron] Harris does it, Nobby Stiles, although he's had a little ticker problem, hasn't he? A couple of the lads even died on the circuit, Billy Bremner, Jackie Blanchflower..."

Since after-dinner speaking represents a sizeable chunk of his income (he also does match-day hospitality at Southampton, having been relieved of the same job at Chelsea), Osgood must have wondered whether to give away some of his best anecdotes in his autobiography: Ossie: King of Stamford Bridge (Mainstream Press, £15.99).

But he has, and I strongly recommend it as a stocking-filler for anyone who comes from the 70s, like I do. It contains many priceless observations, wrapped in elegant prose, such as this about Don Revie's Leeds United team: 'They were so far up their own arses it was untrue.' He also offers a glorious insight into Chelsea's preparation for the 1970 FA Cup final against Leeds, recounting his team-mate Ian Hutchinson's careful analysis of the opposition centre-half, Jack Charlton. "Don't worry about Charlton, Os, he's just a wanker with a long neck," said Hutch.

As it turned out, unforgettably even for those of us who supported other teams, Chelsea beat Leeds 2-1 in the first FA Cup Final replay in nearly 60 years, at Old Trafford. Leeds went one up, and Osgood scored the equaliser. As for the first match, a 2-2 draw, he still feels the need, over lunch in The Highwayman, to set the record straight. "They say they played us off the park at Wembley, and it's true that Eddie Gray murdered Webby [David Webb], but apart from that there were chances at both ends."

We will revisit the 1970s, I say, but I want to talk about Chelsea present as well as Chelsea past. Showing uncharacteristic consistency, they could be just two points off the top of the Premiership at tea-time if they become the first team to beat Everton at Goodison Park this season. So what credit, I wonder, does Osgood give chairman Ken Bates, for hiring and sticking with manager Claudio Ranieri? After all, it is no secret that he and Bates are not top of each other's Christmas card list.

"Batesy turned the club around, bought it for a pound, took on the debts, so fair play to him. I couldn't believe it at first when he brought in Ranieri. The decisions Ranieri made, changing the squad round all the time, someone would score two goals and then be dropped, I didn't understand all that, and nor did the players. [Marcel] Desailly said they didn't know what they were doing in training, but this year they do seem to know. They're playing for each other, playing with a lot more passion, and killing teams off.

"But Batesy, I don't know why he has turned against the 1970s side and especially me. He won't even put my book in the Chelsea shop, which I think is letting the supporters down, but that's Batesy. I used to do the match-day hospitality, earned £10,000-a-year there at the most, but then I got a letter from him at the beginning of last season: 'Dear Peter, thanks for everything you've done for the club, well done, but we've got a nucleus of first-team players now who don't work on Saturdays, and that's good news for us and bad news for you. They will do the hospitality, your services won't be needed any more...'"

While Bates made plain his desire to move on from former glories, others were more sentimental. In a poll this summer of former Chelsea players, invited to nominate the greatest Chelsea player of all time, Osgood came top. Bates reckoned that Gianfranco Zola, who came second, was more deserving. Osgood, unsurprisingly, begs to differ.

"Zola," he says, "is absolutely superb, a credit to the club, his culture, his family and himself, a lovely little man. But I'd say to the chairman: 'When you say Zola is the king, Mr Chairman, remember that I signed for £20-a-week, played for 12 years, and the most I ever earned was £10,000-a-year.' Zola's been there seven years, cost the club a £4.5m fee and £30,000-a-week, so who's better value? I cost them a maximum of £120,000 in wages and they sold me [to Southampton, in 1974] for nearly £300,000.

"Also, consider the pitches he plays on, the ball he plays with, and there's no Chopper Harris up his backside for 90 minutes. Imagine Chopper marking Zola. I mean, no disrespect to Zola, but Jimmy Greaves was the greatest player I ever saw, apart from George [Best], and even he could never play against Chopper."

What, I ask Osgood, allowing him a little dress rehearsal for his turn at the Royal Agricultural College, is his favourite Chopper Harris story? He pauses, but only for a glug of white wine. "Playing at Anfield, Chopper's done Emlyn Hughes after 15 minutes. Everyone hated Emlyn, by the way, and he's gone down squealing. Then I see that Chopper's gone down too. I go over and say 'you alright?' and he winks at me. He wants to make it look like a 50-50 tackle to the referee. Anyway, then I see Smithy [Tommy Smith] sprint in from 20 yards away. He sprints straight past Emlyn, his team-mate, gets to Chopper, hauls him up, and says: 'I could get to like you, Harris'. Nobody hated Emlyn more than Smithy."

Osgood's own footballing nemesis, however, was Geoff Hurst. "I packed in football because of Hursty, to be honest," he says. "The way he treated Danny Blanchflower was disgraceful." It is Osgood's contention that Hurst, as Chelsea coach, was less than supportive of Blanchflower, the manager, into whose shoes he readily stepped when Blanchflower resigned in 1979.

By then Osgood had returned to Chelsea, after a spell in North America. But the truth behind his abrupt retirement, which he now considers too hasty, is perhaps more prosaic. He and Hurst had little respect for the other's lifestyle. 'When he [Hurst] was getting pictured in the local paper opening fêtes... the boys and me would be in the beer tent chucking lager down our necks,' is the way Ossie, the book, puts it.

Chucking lager down his neck was also the way he dealt with disappointment during the 1970 Mexico World Cup (during which, ironically, he and Hurst roomed together). Assured by his captain, Bobby Moore, whom he idolised, that he would be playing in the match against Brazil having come on for Francis Lee against Romania, Osgood was devastated when Alf Ramsey left him out of the squad entirely.

"I missed training the next day. I went out and got absolutely arseholed. He made a big mistake, Alf. I'd scored 31 goals that season, I was the top scorer in English football, Chelsea had won the Cup and finished third in the league, absolutely flying I was. But I never got picked again until 1974. That's where it's all wrong. I only played four times for England, in fact myself, Rodney Marsh, Stan Bowles, Tony Currie, Frank Worthington, Alan Hudson, I doubt whether we got 20 caps between us. Alf, and then Don Revie, didn't like flair players. It happened later with Matt Le Tissier. Awesome player."

"I ask Osgood whether he ever entertained thoughts of becoming a manager himself? As a successful youth-team coach at Portsmouth in the 1980s it must have seemed on the cards. And he clearly had an eye for talent, nurturing one shy, coltish young man in particular. "Darren Anderton was his name," he says, "and the rest is history."

Medical history, anyway, I murmur, and press him on what became of his managerial ambitions. "Well, Bally [Alan Ball, then Portsmouth manager] told me that I'd soon be off on my own, but Jim Gregory took over the club and told Bally to sack me. He'd never even met me, but Dave Sexton was his big mate, and I didn't get on with Dave Sexton."

So that was that. Mind you, I venture, it might have been hard for him, after so many years as a hard-drinking poacher, to turn gamekeeper? "Yeah, but you never know. Terry Venables, who was my first captain at Chelsea, we always knew he'd become a manager. He was a big influence, would always help you out, and why it's going pear-shaped for him now, at Leeds, I don't know. Maybe it's because he's letting others do the coaching for him, which is the same mistake Bally made, because Bally was an awesome coach.

"But George Graham, another of my old team-mates, I could never see George becoming a manager, not in a million years. 'Gorgeous George' we used to call him. Big, good-looking lad, great charisma, typical Jock. In 1965 we went on a close-season tour of Australia, for six weeks, and every airport we flew out of there was a bird crying. Every airport. A bird crying because George was leaving. I couldn't believe it. So I don't know what happened to him. I think when he went to the Arsenal he became a more disciplined player, and he played in midfield there. He thought: 'Hang on, I can orchestrate this,' and I guess it went from there."

Those who played with and managed Osgood doubtless considered him unlikely management material, too. And in his case there were no surprises. Still, who wants to become a football manager, with all that grief, when instead you can be immortalised as an answer to several cracking trivia questions? The other two England internationals with three Os in their surnames, incidentally, are Tony Woodcock and Ian Storey-Moore.