Chelsea football club would not have come into being without the construction of their Stamford Bridge ground. Stamford Bridge was built in 1877 as an athletics track. Gus Mears was a football enthusiast and had purchased the land. He realised that at the turn of the century London failed to provide a single team to the Football League First Division. Mears had spotted the potential for a football club to play at an old athletics ground at Stamford Bridge.
Due to unforeseen problems and a lucrative offer for the land Mears was on the verge of selling up and abandoning his sporting project. Colleague Frederick Parker Devin Funchess Jersey , an enthusiastic supporter of the football stadium project attempted to dissuade him but was told he was wasting his time. In a bizarre turn of events, Parker persuaded Mears to change his mind due to his reaction after being bitten by Mears dog. Despite drawing blood and causing great pain it only drew an amused reaction from Parker.
Chelsea were not in the original plan though. Due to a financial disagreement nearby Fulham Football Club, who were already in existence, declined an offer to abandon the less grand Craven Cottage and move into Stamford Bridge. So in contrast to the history of so many clubs, Mears decided to build a team for a stadium Shaq Thompson Jersey , rather than the other way round. On March 14th 1905 Chelsea Football Club was established, after rejecting several other proposed names, including Stamford Bridge FC, Kensington FC and London FC.
The team joined the Second Division of the expanding Football League, and they played their first ever game against Stockport County on the 29th May 1905. The crowds flocked to Stamford Bridge and over 67 Vernon Butler Jersey ,000 supporters turned up for the visit of Manchester United on Good Friday of that first season. Chelsea's first celebrity player was 22 stone England international goalkeeper Willie 'Fatty' Foulke.
Chelsea appeared in their first FA Cup final in 1915, losing 3-0 to Sheffield United. The First World War had cast a dark shadow over football and the game was known as the 'The Khaki Final' due to the amount of army uniforms in the crowd at Old Trafford. In the 1920's three FA Cup Finals were played at Stamford Bridge in the years immediately prior to the opening of Wembley Stadium in 1923.
In the 1930's Britain had emerged from the horrors of war to face economic depression. Londoners craved distraction and entertainment in their limited spare time. This void was filled with football with crowd figures rising. In October 1935 82,905 crammed into the Bridge for a league game against Arsenal - the highest official attendance ever recorded at the ground. It remains the biggest attendance in English league football too. Chelsea splashed out on northern stars Alec Cheyne, Alec Jackson and Hughie Gallacher.
In the 1940's war-time football saw normal competitions abandoned for regional versions and guest players turning out for sides. Chelsea appeared at Wembley for the first time in the Football League South Cup Final in 1944, losing to Charlton Sam Mills Jersey , before winning in front of the king in the same competition 12 months later against Millwall. At the end of the World War II, Stamford Bridge had survived the bombing and just six months after Victory in Europe was declared, the 40 year-old stadium hosted what remains one of its most momentous occasions - Dynamo Day.
London was desperate to see top level football and there were few bigger draws than the mystery of a team travelling over from war-time allies Russia. Moscow Dynamo opened a tour of Britain against Chelsea and it seemed the whole city came to watch. The turnstiles were closed with a recorded 74,496 having passed through but the shut gates proved no obstacle to the football-starved masses. Estimates put the total crowd at over 100,000. Such were the scenes around the pitch that the 3-3 result seems incidental.
The third goal in the game was scored by new centre-forward Tommy Lawton. In his first full season he broke a club record with 26 goals in 34 First Division games Thomas Davis Panthers Jersey , yet the team finished 15th. After an all-too-brief two years, he was gone. Two months after Lawton's transfer, Chelsea spent just over half of the British record twenty thousand pounds they had received on a new striker, Roy Bentley. He was more mobile than his predecessor - and more long-lasting. In each of his eight full seasons at the Bridge he was club top scorer.
In 1951 Chelsea avoided relegation by a mere 0.044 of a goal. In 1952 Ted Drake was appointed as manager and he removed the Chelsea Pensioner from the club's badge and banished 'The Pensioners' nickname. Former amateur Seamus O'Connell had one of the most memorable debuts in Chelsea history - scoring a hat-trick as Chelsea lost 6-5 to Manchester United at an enthralled Stamford Bridge. That was in October 1954, one of a run of six games that yielded only two points. Hardly the form of champions but it was in 1955 that Chelsea won their first league title. Bentley Mike Tolbert Panthers Jersey , by now England's first choice centre-forward, had been an inspirational captain, scoring 21 goals.
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