Under Docherty’s successor, Dave Sexton, Chelsea won the FA Cup in 1970, beating Leeds United 2–1 in a final replay. Chelsea failed to build on this success, and spent the remainder of the 1950s in mid-table. Former Arsenal and England centre-forward Ted Drake was appointed manager in 1952 and proceeded to modernise the club.
The 2013 UEFA Women’s Champions League final was played at Stamford Bridge as well. The CPO was created to ensure the stadium could never again be sold to developers. The Stamford Bridge freehold, the pitch, the turnstiles and Chelsea’s naming rights are now owned by Chelsea Pitch Owners, a non-profit organisation in which fans are the shareholders. Work began in 1972 but the project was beset with problems and ultimately only the East Stand was completed; the cost brought the club close to bankruptcy. The early 1930s saw the construction of a terrace on the southern part of the ground with a roof that covered around 20% of the stand.
From 2009 to 2013, Chelsea were unbeaten in a record 29 consecutive FA Cup matches (excluding penalty shoot-outs). Chelsea is the only Premier League side to have won its opening nine league games of the season, doing so in 2005–06. However, an estimated crowd of over 100,000 attended a friendly match against Soviet team Dynamo Moscow on 13 November 1945. The club’s 21–0 aggregate victory over Jeunesse Hautcharage in the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in 1971 is a record in European competition. Chelsea’s biggest winning scoreline in a competitive match is 13–0, achieved against Jeunesse Hautcharage in the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1971. More recently a rivalry with Liverpool has grown following repeated clashes in cup competitions.
Club personnel
Here’s how the top of the table looks after matchweek 13. It’s a London derby, everyone wants to win this game.” There were seven or eight players on yellows.
Abramovich era
Fellow West London clubs Brentford, Fulham and Queens Park Rangers (QPR) are considered rivals, but less so in recent times as matches have only taken place intermittently due to the teams often being in separate divisions. At the time of the Abramovich takeover, the club had debts of around £100 million, which included a 10-year £75 million Chelsea House Review Eurobond taken out in 1997 by the Bates regime to buy the freehold of Stamford Bridge and finance the redevelopment of the stadium. Greaves holds the club record for the most goals scored in one season (43 in 1960–61). It has the sixth-highest average attendance in the history of English football, and regularly attract over 40,000 fans to Stamford Bridge; they were the ninth best-supported Premier League team in the 2023–24 season, with an average gate of 39,700. It was the home stadium of the London Monarchs American football team for the 1997 season.
The latter is often accompanied by fans throwing celery at each other, although the vegetable was banned inside Stamford Bridge after an incident involving midfielder Cesc Fàbregas at the 2007 League Cup final. With the new ownership of Roman Abramovich, and the club’s centenary approaching, combined with demands from fans for the popular 1950s badge to be restored, it was decided that the crest should be changed again in 2005. The badge took the form of the familiar lion and staff encircled by a blue ring but without lettering and without the red roses and red footballs (blazoned as “A lion rampant reguardant azure supporting with the forepaws a crozier or all within an annulet azure”). However, on 31 May 2018, the club released a statement saying that the new stadium project had been put on hold indefinitely, citing “the current unfavourable investment climate”. The club subsequently announced plans to redevelop Stamford Bridge into a 60,000-seater stadium,and in January 2017 these plans were approved by Hammersmith and Fulham council.
He added several top international players to the side and led the club to their first major honour since 1971, the FA Cup. The club bounced back immediately by winning the Second Division championship in 1988–89. Bates bought a controlling stake in the club and floated Chelsea on the AIM stock exchange in March 1996 although by now the Stamford Bridge freehold had been sold to property developers, meaning the club faced losing their home. The following year, Chelsea took their first European honour, a UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup triumph, with another replayed win, this time over Real Madrid in Athens.
James ‘seems to slot into Chelsea’s midfield seamlessly’published at 10:58 GMT10:58 GMT
They were FA Cup semi-finalists in 1920 and 1932 and remained in the First Division throughout the 1930s, but success eluded the club in the inter-war years. After winning the UEFA Conference League in 2025, Chelsea became the first club to win all four main UEFA competitions, as well as all UEFA Men’s competitions. They have also won eight FA Cups, five League Cups, and four FA Community Shields, making them the fifth-most successful club in English football. Chelsea Football Club is a professional football club based in Fulham, London, England.
How bold Chelsea showed they have grown in maturitypublished at 12:16 GMT12:16 GMT
A week later, Abramovich wrote-off the £1.5 billion the club owed him, and put the club up for sale, pledging to donate net proceeds from it to the victims of the war in Ukraine. Chelsea, one of the first clubs to help the National Health Service, lent the club-owned Millennium Hotel for the NHS staff. After a backlash from supporters, the club announced their withdrawal days later. Sarri then left the club to become manager of Juventus and was replaced by former Chelsea player Frank Lampard.
League history
- On the pitch, the team had fared little better, coming close to relegation to the Third Division for the first time, but in 1983 manager John Neal put together an impressive new team for minimal outlay.
- Other shareholders at the time of the takeover included the Matthew Harding estate (21%), BSkyB (9.9%) and various anonymous offshore trusts.
- Work began in 1972 but the project was beset with problems and ultimately only the East Stand was completed; the cost brought the club close to bankruptcy.
After a poor start to the 2007–08 season, Mourinho was replaced by Avram Grant, who led the club to their first UEFA Champions League final, which they lost on penalties to Manchester United. Under Mourinho, Chelsea became the fifth English team to win back-to-back league championships since the Second World War (2004–05 and 2005–06), in addition to winning an FA Cup (2007) and two League Cups (2005 and 2007). In the mid-1990s Chelsea fan and businessman Matthew Harding became a director and loaned the club £26 million to build the new North Stand and invest in new players.
Crest
A strong rivalry with Leeds United dates back to several heated and controversial matches in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly the 1970 FA Cup final. In 2007, the club launched the Back to the Shed campaign to improve the atmosphere at home matches, with notable success. As of 2023update, Chelsea has 118.9 million followers on social media, the fourth highest among football clubs.
- In 1904, Gus Mears acquired the Stamford Bridge athletics stadium in Fulham with the aim of turning it into a football ground.
- The club opted against furloughing their non-matchday staff during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the decision reportedly coming from Abramovich himself.
- A 2012 survey, conducted among 1,200 supporters of the top four league divisions across the country, found that many clubs’ main rivals had changed since 2003 and reported that Chelsea fans consider Tottenham to be their main rivals, above Arsenal and Manchester United.
When you wear this shirt you want to win every game. 💬 “On one hand disappointed because we didn’t win. Arsenal managed just one shot before the red card and eight in total today, their fewest in a Premier League game since October 2024. If you win a duel or a second action, you get yourself attacking the box. But I knew it was a horrible challenge and it would be a red card straight away.
Arteta: Referee made right call with red card
Chelsea released the song “No One Can Stop Us Now” in 1994 for reaching the 1994 FA Cup final. The song has since been adopted by a number of other sports teams around the world, including the Vancouver Whitecaps (as “White is the Colour”) and the Saskatchewan Roughriders (as “Green is the Colour”). Other away kits include an all jade strip worn from 1986 to 1989, red and white diamonds from 1990 to 1992, graphite and tangerine from 1994 to 1996, and luminous yellow from 2007 to 2008. In the mid-1970s, the away strip was a red, white and green kit inspired by the Hungarian national side of the 1950s.
In 1953, the club crest was changed to an upright blue lion looking backwards and holding a staff. Believing the Chelsea pensioner crest to be old-fashioned, he insisted that it be replaced. The first, adopted when the club was founded, was the image of a Chelsea Pensioner, the army veterans who reside at the nearby Royal Hospital Chelsea. In October 2011, a proposal from the club to buy back the freehold to the land on which Stamford Bridge sits was voted down by Chelsea Pitch Owners shareholders.
The team reached the 1915 FA Cup final, where they lost to Sheffield United at Old Trafford, and finished third in the First Division in 1920, the club’s best league campaign to that point. That’s twice as many as any other team so far this season. In the 2020–21 season, Chelsea won a domestic treble by winning the league, FA Cup and League Cup. Two years later, in 2020, they repeated their double success by winning the third league title and the FA Women’s League Cup for the first time. In 2015, Chelsea Ladies won the FA Women’s Cup for the first time, beating Notts County Ladies at Wembley Stadium, and a month later clinched their first FA WSL title to complete a league and cup double.
The appointment of Ruud Gullit as player-manager in 1996 began an upturn in the team’s fortunes. Chelsea’s form in the new Premier League was unconvincing, although they did reach the 1994 FA Cup final. In 1982, at the nadir of their fortunes, Chelsea were acquired by Ken Bates from Mears’ great-nephew Brian Mears, for the nominal sum of £1. Further problems were caused by a notorious hooligan element among the support, which was to plague the club throughout the decade.
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