LITTLE KNOWN FACTS ABOUT CHELSEA FC
Chelsea football club, an English professional football team based in Fulham west London, was founded on 14th March 1905. Chelsea quickly gained reputation for attracting large crowds and signing big name players. The clubs early years saw little success as they failed to win any major trophy in their first fifty years. They spent thirty of their first forty seasons in the first division, although they often found themselves finishing in mid-table or battling relegation. The closet Chelsea came to winning a major trophy was reaching the FA CUP final in 1915, where they lost to Sheffield United.
The dead luck was finally broken by manager TED DRAKE(former Arsenal and England centre forward), who introduced a series of changes at the club(including the removal of the clubs pensioner crest, and improving the youth set-up and training regime) and led Chelsea to the League Championship in 1955. The following season saw UEFA create the European Champions Cup, but after objections from the football league and FA, Chelsea were persuaded to withdraw from the competition before it started.
From 1963-72 Chelsea regularly challenged for honours for the first time, although the often narrowly missed out. They won the league cup in 1965, the FA Cup in 1970 and the UEFA Cup winners in 1971(after defeating Realmadrid), they were also FA Cup runners-up in 1967 and league cup runner-up in 1972.
Several problems over the next decade, principally the debt burden caused by an ambitious attempt to redevelop Stamford Bridge, brought the club to the brink of extinction, before a revival under John Nael in the 1980s saw the club win the second division trophy and ultimately re-established itself in the top flight.
A further revival under managers Ruud Gullit(1996-98) and Gianluca Vialli(1998-2000) saw Chelsea win the FA Cup in 1997 and 2000, the league cup and UEFA cup in 1998 and qualify for the champions league for the first time.
Since 1995 till date Chelsea have not finished outside of the top six in the English premier league.
In 2003, Chelsea were bought by Russian Billionaire Roman Abramovich, ushering in the club's current phase of success. Manager Jose Mourinho arrived at the club, replacing Claudio Ranieri as the coach and led Chelsea to two league tittles, an FA cup and two league tittles in three seasons.The club added a further FA cup in 2009, reached their first UEFA champions league final in may 2008, were they lost to Manchester United on penalties.
