Welcome to the Soccer Tavern, where we’re discussing the history, culture, and philosophy of the beautiful game. My name is Dave and in this series of videos, we’re discussing the history of soccer clubs around the world. In this video, we’re discussing Chelsea Football Club. Pull up a seat and let’s start the discussion.
Chelsea FC is located in the southwest, central part of the city of London. Funny enough, the club’s home ground is actually in the Fulham neighborhood, not Chelsea proper. London is located in the southern-central part of England in the United Kingdom. Chelsea currently play in the Premier League. The club’s home ground is called Stamford Bridge, which was built in 1905 and holds 41,623 people.
Origin
Chelsea’s founding story begins in 1904 when Gus Mears bought the London Athletics Club and some property surrounding it. His goal was to build a soccer stadium and lease it to a local club. Mears began building Stamford Bridge and invited Fulham FC to move into the stadium once it was completed, but they declined.
Mears considered selling the property but was persuaded to consider starting his own soccer club by Frederick Parker. Mears was an amateur soccer player in his youth and loved the game, so took to this idea. On March 10, 1905, at the Rising Sun Pub, Mears along with a handful of other founding directors started Chelsea FC as a way to utilize Stamford Bridge.
They still needed to find a league to play in and on the back of their new, state of the art stadium, plus strong player signings, they were admitted to the Football League’s Division Two. Chelsea were the first and only club to have ever been admitted to the Football League without ever having kicked a ball.
Nicknames
Chelsea have two nicknames that I’d like to discuss (1) “The Pensioners”, which is their old nickname and (2) “The Blues”, which is their current nickname.
Chelsea were called The Pensioners until the mid-1950s because their home stadium is in close proximity to the famous Royal Hospital Chelsea. The hospital houses British war veterans – who’re known as Pensioners. The club adopted the crest of the pensioners in 1905, which we’ll show in our next segment, and carried the nickname of Pensioners until Ted Drake became manager in the 1950s.
Drake was strongly against the nickname due to his belief it made the club seem old. Since Chelsea played in blue kits, fans began calling them the blues, which has been the club’s nickname ever since the mid-50s.
Crest
As we just discussed, Chelsea’s original crest was that of a pensioner.
It looked like an old war veteran with a hat, beard, and war medals on his chest. This was used from the club’s founding until 1952 when Ted Drake insisted on a change.
A simplified, temporary crest with just the letters CFC intertwined was used for 1 season before the club debuted a new crest in 1953.
In the new crest, a blue lion holding a golden staff was in the middle of a circle.
The lion was a reference to the family coat of arms for the club’s first president, Earl Cadogan. The golden staff or crozier is a reference to the Abbott of Westminster, who was the leader of the church in Westminster Abbey, the famous nearby church in London.
Around the outside of the circle were 3 roses and 2 soccer balls. The roses were a reference to England and the 2 soccer balls were obviously a reference to Chelsea playing the sport of soccer. Chelsea Football Club is written at the bottom of the crest.
This crest was changed in the ’80s due to trademark complications before the current crest was implemented in the 2004-2005 season to celebrate the club’s 100 year anniversary.
The club went back to the crest created in 1953 with a couple minor tweaks including making the lion and crozier blue and dropping one of the roses to create symmetry in the logo.
The crest used today is more or less the same crest created in the 1950s but is able to be trademarked.
Important Events
A historic club like Chelsea has many important events in their history and I’d like to discuss four of them now.
On April 23, 1955, Chelsea FC beat Sheffield Wednesday 3-0 to secure their first ever 1st division title. The title was a shock as most people expected Chelsea to finish in the bottom half of the table that season, but Ted Drake was able to lead the club to claim their first ever top flight championship in their 50th year of existence.
The next event happened about 3 decades later. On April 2, 1982, Chelsea was sold from the founding Mears family to a businessman named Ken Bates for £1. The club had been underperforming on the pitch for years and were about £1.5M in debt. They were in danger of going bankrupt until Bates came to the rescue. Bates wasn’t exactly loved by all Chelsea fans throughout his ownership but he did steer the club back to stability and built a competitive squad over his 20 years of ownership. Then, Roman Abramovich entered the picture, which brings us to the next most important event I’d like to highlight.
Roman Abramovich officially bought the club from Ken Bates on July 1, 2003 for £140M. That was a record sale for an English club at the time. With Abramovich’s ownership came a huge influx of money and a changing of the way the Premier League and its clubs did business. Abramovich has attracted some of the best players and managers, which has seen Chelsea’s rise to become one of the most successful club’s in English soccer history. Abramovich’s culminating achievement is the last important event I’ll cover in this section.
On May 19, 2012, Chelsea beat Bayern Munich on penalties in the Champions League final at Bayern’s home ground of the Allianz Arena. Bayern took a lead late in the match, but Chelsea was able to level in the 85th minute through club legend Didier Drogba. The match ended 1-1 with Chelsea winning 4-3 on penalties after 7 rounds. It was a wonderful redemption for the club who had lost painfully on penalties in the 2008 Champions League final to Manchester United. Chelsea remains the first and only London based club to have won the Champions League/UEFA European Cup.
Supporters
There are no nicknames for Chelsea fans but the most passionate fans in the stadium are located in the Shed End and Matthew Harding Stand behind each goal at opposite ends of Stamford Bridge.
Also fans who’re overseas or in other areas will generally adopt their city’s name plus Blues for an official supporters’ club.
Noteworthy Players
Chelsea have had many great players in their history. Two modern legends I’d like to highlight are Frank Lampard and John Terry.
Frank Lampard is the club’s all-time record scorer as a midfielder and was a model professional in every way during his long career with Chelsea.
John Terry on the other hand was notable for both onfield and off field exploits of which there were many of both. He was club captain for many years and nearly spent his entire professional playing career with the club.
Peter Osgood, Jimmy Greaves, Ruud Gullit, Petr Cech, Didier Drogba, Eden Hazard, and many others are worth mentioning here as well but for the sake of time, we need to keep moving.
Noteworthy Managers
Chelsea have had a slew of great managers in their history.
I’ve already mentioned Ted Drake who managed from 1952-1961. In addition to changing the club’s nickname, Drake managed Chelsea to their first ever first division title and changed the club’s philosophy with regards to training, as well as scouting lower leagues for unidentified talent.
Jose Mourinho is the other main manager I wanted to discuss here. He managed at Chelsea in two separate stints from 2004-07 and 2013-2015. His self-appointed nickname of the “Special One” is known to most of the soccer world at this point. He lived up to the nickname almost immediately and won a Premier League title in his first season with a then record 95 points for the season. In both his stints combined he won 3 Premier League titles, 2 League Cups, and an FA Cup with Chelsea. He has also won League and European titles at other clubs and is one of the most decorated managers in Chelsea history.
I also wanted to mention Carlo Ancelotti and Antonio Conte as two of the most respected & well-known recent managers who’ve done well at Chelsea and elsewhere.
Rivals
Chelsea have many rivals.
Fulham & QPR are Chelsea’s historic and closest geographical rivals. But those rivalries have faded a bit with Chelsea’s rise to the top of English soccer and those clubs’ struggles. So, We will focus on Chelsea’s 3 main Premier League rivals in this section: Arsenal, Tottenham, & Manchester United.
Like we discussed in our Arsenal video, the rivalry between Chelsea and Arsenal has really heated up in the last 3 decades. There were consequential and fiery matches prior to the 90s, but the rivalry really started gaining traction during this time period. Chelsea gave Arsenal their only loss in the 1990-91 season. And there were a handful of other intense matches in the 90s. When Roman Abramovich became owner of Chelsea in the early 2000s, things were taken to another level. Chelsea became immediate title contenders and with the competition between both clubs for trophies and top players over the last 2 decades, the rivalry has grown into something more tangible. The rivalry was also stoked by Jose Mourinho and Arsene Wenger’s managerial feuds in the media and on the touchline.
Chelsea’s Tottenham rivalry can be traced back to the 1967 FA Cup final, which was the first to be contested by 2 clubs from London. Spurs won the match 2-1 with 2 former Chelsea players, which helped ignite animosity. In the 1974-75 season, the two clubs were battling to avoid relegation from the first division and met in a late season match. Spurs won that 2-0 and effectively relegated Chelsea. Chelsea turned the rivalry around in the 90s, not losing a match for 16 years from 1990 to 2006. Since then, both clubs have built themselves into trophy contenders annually and matches between the clubs are always physical battles. None more so than in 2016 with the match dubbed “The Battle At the Bridge.” Tottenham was chasing Leicester City in the league and needed to win at Stamford Bridge to keep their title hopes alive. In an incredibly physical match that ended 2-2 and should have seen multiple players sent off, but inexplicably weren’t, Chelsea ended Tottenham’s championship hopes that season.
Lastly, Manchester United is considered a Chelsea rival due to Manchester United’s role as the most decorated English club at least as far as domestic titles and brand value is concerned. Under the Roman Abramovich ownership, anything less than championships are unacceptable, which means the two clubs are constantly competing for players and in the table. The rivalry has been helped by larger than life managers in Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho. Nowadays, Jose Mourinho is on the Manchester side and trading words in the press with Antonio Conte. This rivalry doesn’t feel quite as heated as the rivalry with the two London clubs, but the two clubs are definitely still rivals.
Stats & Records
The stats and records I’m about to mention are as of February 2018 when I am recording this video.
Chelsea have spent 83 seasons in the top flight in their history.
The club has 22 major trophies including:
- 7 FA Cups
- 6 First Division/ Premier League Titles
- 5 League Cups
- 2 UEFA Cup Winner’s Cups
- 1 Champions’ League
- 1 Europa League
The club’s record first team appearance holder is Ron Harris with 795 appearances.
The club’s record goal scorer is Frank Lampard with 211 goals.
Petr Cech holds the club’s all-time clean sheet record with 227 clean sheets in starts, plus 1 additional clean sheet where he played part of the match.
The club’s record transfer purchase was Álvaro Morata from Real Madrid on July 21, 2017 for about £58M initially plus up to £12M in add-ons.
And Chelsea’s record transfer sale was Diego Costa to Atletico Madrid on January 1, 2018 for about £57M. The Costa deal was agreed in September 2017 but due to Atletico’s transfer ban, it didn’t process until January.
One last interesting fact about Chelsea FC: the club currently holds the record for the highest ever points total for a league season (95 points – this has since been broken by Manchester City with 100 points in 2017-2018) and the fewest goals conceded during a league season (15 goals). Both those records occurred in the 2004-2005 season under the management of Jose Mourinho.
So there you have it… a bit of history on Chelsea Football Club. Let’s continue the discussion in the comments section below this video.
Thanks for stopping by the Soccer Tavern. Hope to see you again sometime soon. Cheers.
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