Chelsea had an impressive return to the First Division in 1989-90. Manager Bobby Campbell guided a squad of mostly unremarkable players to a creditable fifth place in the final table. Although the ban on English clubs in European football was lifted that year, Chelsea missed out on a UEFA Cup place because the only English place in the competition that year went to runners-up Aston Villa. In the same season, he led Chelsea to their second Full Members Cup success, with a 1-0 win over Middlesbrough in the final at Wembley. Campbell resigned a year later and he was replaced by Ian Porterfield, who helped Chelsea finish high enough in 1991-92 to qualify for the first-ever season of the Premier League. He quit halfway through the season and was replaced on a caretaker basis by another member of Chelsea's 1970 FA Cup side, David Webb, who guided the team to an 11th place finish. Webb was replaced at the end of the season by 35-year-old former England midfielder Glenn Hoddle, who had just won promotion to the Premiership as player-manager of Swindon Town.
Meanwhile, in 1992, following over a decade of uncertainty about Stamford Bridge and its future, leading to several acrimonious legal disputes and the long-running "Save the Bridge" campaign, Bates finally outmanoeuvred the property developers and reunited the freehold with the Club, by seeing them go bust after a market crash and doing a deal with their banks. This led to the creation of Chelsea Pitch Owners, who in 1997 purchased the freehold of the stadium, the club's naming rights and the pitch to ensure that such a situation could never happen again. Following this, work was begun to renovate the entire stadium (bar the East Stand), making it all-seater and bringing the stands closer to the pitch and under cover, which was finally completed by the millennium.
Hoddle's first season as manager saw Chelsea's league form dip slightly, and for a time they were threatened by relegation, with the goals of £1,500,000 signing Mark Stein playing an important part in survival. In the same season Chelsea reached the FA Cup final, where they faced Premiership champions Manchester United, a team Chelsea had beaten 1-0 in both league games that season. After going in 0-0 at half-time, United were awarded two second-half penalties in the space of 5 minutes, both of which were scored. With Chelsea having to attack, it left gaps in defence and United eventually won 4-0. This was nevertheless sufficient to qualify Chelsea to compete in Europe for the 1994-95 Cup Winners Cup (since Manchester United had independently qualified for the Champions League). They reached the semi-finals of the competition and went out by one goal to eventual winners Real Zaragoza.
Chelsea now had a decent squad with several top class players, the most significant of which was inspirational captain Dennis Wise. But chairman Ken Bates and director Matthew Harding were making millions of pounds available for the club to spend on players, and two world-famous players were signed in the summer of 1995 - Dutch legend Ruud Gullit (free transfer from Sampdoria) and Manchester United's high-scoring striker Mark Hughes (£1.5 m), along with talented Romanian full-back Dan Petrescu. Hoddle guided Chelsea to another 11th place finish in 1995-96, and another FA Cup semi-final, and then quit to become manager of the England team.
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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