In Fulham, close to the borough of Chelsea in South West London lies the prestigious Stamford Bridge stadium, home to the Chelsea Football Club. Also known as The Blues, Chelsea FC can in a way be regarded as the Royals of football owing to their trademark blue colour and the impressive image of a lion holding a staff emblazoned on their crest.
Playing by a philosophy of making history and not just reliving it, Chelsea Football Club has not backed down to rest on past laurels, but has pushed forward against odds and has steadily grown from its early modest years to what it is now, one of the most successful professional football clubs in the world.
Having become globally well known, with 114 years of playing experience, Chelsea FC has indeed transformed from the young club that was formed in 1905, in an upper room at the Rising Sun pub, now known as Butcher’s Hook. Following an unsuccessful deal to lease a newly acquired Stamford Bridge stadium to Fulham football club, business man Gus Mears turned to found a new club, Chelsea FC, in what can be said to be a master stroke of Providence. The Blues were selected to join the Football League, Division Two, but soon rose to the First Division in the second football season in 1907. With big-shot players signed into the club, Chelsea FC matches quickly drew a horde of audience to Stamford Bridge, the largest crowds in England at the time and soon Chelsea began sinking its roots as the biggest team in London.
However, the success of The Blues was marred with many on-field disappointments as they easily swung between First and Second Division and only made it to the 1915 FA Cup final. Things began to look up in 1970 when The Blues finally won the FA Cup and soon enough they earned the their first European recognition by winning the UEFA Cup Winner’s Cup in 1971.
The early years of Chelsea FC were a mix of small successes with greater disappointments especially between the years of 1970 to 1980 when a gale of financial difficulty threatened to disintegrate the club following redevelopment of Stamford Bridge. By 1997, fortune smiled on The Blues with the club winning the FA Cup a second time. Chelsea FC re-established itself as a worthy football team by winning for a second time the 1998 UEFA Cup Winner’s Cup and 1998 League Cup. By year 2000, Chelsea FC won the FA Cup for a third time and proceeded to make their debut in the UEFA Champions League.
Upon acquisition by Russian Billionaire Roman Abramovich in 2003, The Blues began breaking frontiers and achieving greater success and by 2012, the club achieved their first UEFA Champions League title. The Blues have gone on to become the seventh most valuable football club in the world and there is no stopping this team. Are you a Chelsea fan? How deeply do you know this club? Take this quiz to see!
