Chelsea F.C. was founded on March 14, 1905 at The Rising Sun pub, now called “The Butcher's Hook” opposite today's main entrance to the ground on the Fulham Road. Since there was already a team named Fulham in the borough, the name of the adjacent borough, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, was settled on after London FC, Kensington FC and Stamford Bridge FC had been rejected. Chelsea were denied entry to the Southern League following obligations from Fulham and Tottenham Hotspur, so instead applying for admission to the Football League. Their candidacy was approved at the Football League AGM on May 29, 1905, with a speech by Parker, which emphasized the new club's financial stability and its impressive new stadium and team playing an important part. Blue shirts were adopted by Mears, after the racing colors of Lord Chelsea, along with white shorts and dark blue socks. The club's first league match took place away at Stockport County on September 2, 1905. They lost the game 1-0. Their first home match was against Liverpool in a friendly. They won 4-0.
Scottish international half-back John Tait Robertson was recruited to be the club's first player-manager. The club began with established players recruited from other teams, such as 308 pound goalkeeper William "Fatty" Foulke, who was a FA Cup winner with Sheffield United, and inside forward Jimmy Windridge who came from Small Heath. The club finished a honorable 3rd in their first season, but Robertson steadily saw his position undermined by board room interference. He lost the power to select the team in November 1906, and by January 1907 he had left for Glossop. Club secretary William Lewis took temporary charge and led the team to promotion at the end of the season, thanks largely to the goals of Windridge and George "Gatling Gun" Hilsdon. The latter was the first of many prolific strikers/forwards to play for Chelsea; he scored five goals on his debut and 27 in the promotion season en route to becoming the first player to score 100 goals for the club.
Lewis was succeeded by David Calderhead, who was to manage Chelsea for the next 26 years. The club's early seasons produced little success, and they yo-yoed between the First and Second divisions. They were relegated in 1909-10, promoted in 1911-12 and finished second-bottom in 1914-15, the final competitive season before football in England was abandoned owing to World War I. The club would normally have been demoted, but the league was expanded after the war, and Chelsea were invited to re-join the First Division.
In spite of their checkered fortunes, Chelsea became one of the best-supported teams in the country, with fans attracted by the team's reputation for playing entertaining attacking football and for signing star players, notably defensive back Ben Warren and striker Bob Whittingham. 67,000 people attended the league game against Manchester United on Good Friday 1906, a then-record for a Second Division match. 55,000 attended the first-ever London derby in the top division, against Woolwich Arsenal, a record for a First Division match. 77,952 attended the fourth round FA Cup tie against Swindon on 13 April 1911.
In 1915, under the shadow of the First World War, Chelsea reached their first FA Cup final, the so-called "Khaki" cup final, owing to the large number of uniformed soldiers in attendance. The match against Sheffield United was played in a gloomy atmosphere and staged at Old Trafford in Manchester to avoid disturbance in London. Chelsea, minus their top novice striker, Vivian Woodward, who had sportingly insisted that the team who reached the final ought to keep their places, were seemingly unnerved by the occasion and outplayed for much of the match. Goalkeeper Jim Molyneux's mistake allowed United to score before half-time, but the Blues held out until the final six minutes, when their opponents added two more to win 3-0.
1919-20, the first full season following the war, was Chelsea's most successful up to that point. Led by 24 goal striker Jack Cock, the club's latest glamour signing, they finished 3rd in the league - the highest league finish for a London club - and reached the FA Cup semi-finals, only to be denied by eventual winners Aston Villa, which saw them miss out on a chance to play in the final at Stamford Bridge. The club were relegated again in 1923-24 and in four of the next five seasons were to narrowly miss out on promotion, finishing 5th, 3rd, 4th and 3rd. They finally reached the First Division again in 1929-30, where they were to remain for the next 32 years.
To capitalise on the 1930 promotion, the club spent £25,000 ($49,000) on three big-name players; Scots Hughie Gallacher, Alex Jackson and Alec Cheyne. Gallacher in particular was one of the biggest talents of his era, known for his goalscoring and for having captained Newcastle to a championship in 1926-27. He and Jackson had also been members of the famous Wembley Wizards team, the Scotland team which beat England 5-1 at Wembley in 1928. However, though the team occasionally clicked, such as in a 6-2 win over Manchester United and a 5-0 win over Sunderland, none of the trio had the desired impact. Gallacher was Chelsea's top scorer in each of his four seasons, scoring 81 goals in total, but his time in West London was filled by long suspensions for indiscipline. Jackson and Cheyne struggled to settle at the club and were unable re-capture their previous achievements. The trio didn't make 300 appearances between them and by 1936 all had left at a significant financial loss to the club. Their failure epitomised Chelsea's flaws throughout the decade, whereby performances and results rarely matched the calibre of players at the club. Money was spent, but some feel it was too often spent on inappropriate players, especially forwards, while the defence remained neglected.
The FA Cup was to be the closest the club came to silverware. In 1932, the team secured impressive wins over Liverpool and Sheffield Wednesday, and were drawn against Newcastle United in the semi-finals. Newcastle took a 2-0 lead, before Gallacher pulled one back for Chelsea. The Blues laid siege to the United goal in the second half, but were unable to make a breakthrough and the Geordies reached the final. Calderhead stepped down in 1933 and was replaced by Leslie Knighton, but the appointment saw little change in Chelsea's fortunes. At different times during the decade the club had on its books the likes of Tommy Law, Sam Weaver, Syd Bishop, Harry Burgess, Dick Spence and Joe Bambrick, all established internationals, yet their highest league finish in the decade was 8th. Ironically, two of the club's most reliable players during the decade cost them nothing: goalkeeper Vic Woodley, who was to win 19 consecutive caps for England, and centre-forward George Mills, the first player to score 100 league goals for Chelsea. They avoided relegation by two points in 1932-33 and 1933-34, and by one point in 1938-39. Another promising cup run in 1939, which included wins over Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday, petered out with a home loss to Grimsby Town in the quarter-finals.
The club continued to be one of the country's best-supported teams. The visit of Arsenal on 12 October 1935 attracted 82,905 to Stamford Bridge, which remains a club record and the second highest ever attendance at an English league match. Crowds of almost 50,000 attended Gallacher and Jackson's home debuts. In 1939, with the club having come no closer to on-field success, Knighton stepped down. He was succeeded by Scotsman and former Queens Park Rangers manager, Billy Birrell, a man whose brainchild was to radically change the club's fortunes.
The 2010–11 season is Chelsea Football Club's 96th competitive season, 19th consecutive season in the Premier League, and 105th year in existence as a football club. They went into the Premier League as the defending champions, but failed to retain it. Chelsea Premier League Tickets are available at FootballTicketExchangeOnline.com at affordable price. Football fans can buy or sell Football Tickets especially Chelsea Premiership Football Tickets at FootballTicketExchangeOnline.com conveniently.
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