Chelsea Football Club are one of
the present forces in English football.
Nicknamed as the Blues, they saw the light
of this world on March 14,1905 but couldn’t
manage much success until the mid-1950s
when they won their maiden league championship
in 1954-1955. Thereafter the west London
club who play their home matches at Stamford
Bridge continued to challenge for honours
for then it was always a matter of near-enough.
The club did win the UEFA Cup Winners’
Cup in 1971 but confronted a financial
meltdown during the mid 1970s and 1980s
and it was only when Ken Bates bought
the club that Chelsea managed to regain
stability. Chelsea are one of the few
clubs that have always played in the English
Premier League and have had the likes
of Ruud Gullit, Gianluca Vialli and Claudio
Ranieri taking charge of the club. But
it wasn’t until the advent of a
certain Roman Abramovich in 2003 that
the Chelsea seriously began to establish
themselves as a force.
The Russian oligarch lured manager Jose Mourinho to Stamford Bridge in 2004 and the Portuguese won two successive Premiership titles with a star-studded side. However the style of play didn’t suit everybody’s taste, the Portuguese left the club and although Avram Grant took the club to a Champions League Final it was not good enough to keep his job. ‘Big’ Phil Scholari was appointed as the new manager in the summer of 2008 and the team has motored to the top of the Premiership playing a mixture of exuberant and exciting football.
The squad at Chelsea FC remains full of international world class players such as Frank Lampard, Czech international goalkeeper Petr Cech, Portuguese centra-back Ricardo Carvalho, Frenchman Niklas Anelka, and Germany’s Michael Ballack.
Chelsea Fixtures
