In 1904
Gus Mears acquired the
Stamford Bridge athletics stadium with the aim of turning it into a football ground. An offer to lease it to nearby
Fulham was turned down, so Mears opted to found his own club to use the stadium. As there was already a team named Fulham in the borough, the name of the adjacent borough of Chelsea was chosen for the new club, having also considered names like
Kensington FC,
Stamford Bridge FC and
London FC.
[8] Chelsea were founded on 10 March 1905 at The Rising Sun pub (now The Butcher's Hook),
[9] opposite the present-day main entrance to the ground on
Fulham Road, and were elected to the Football League shortly afterwards.
The club won promotion to the First Division in their second season, and yo-yoed between the First and Second Divisions in their early years. They reached the
1915 FA Cup Final, where they lost to
Sheffield United at Old Trafford, and finished 3rd in the First Division in 1920, the club's best league campaign to that point.
[10] Chelsea attracted large crowds
[11] and had a reputation for signing big-name players,
[12] but success continued to elude the club in the inter-war years.
Former
Arsenal and England centre-forward
Ted Drake became manager in 1952 and proceeded to modernise the club. He removed the club's
Chelsea pensioner crest, improved the youth set-up and training regime, rebuilt the side with shrewd signings from the lower divisions and amateur leagues, and led Chelsea to their first major trophy success – the League championship – in 1954–55. The following season saw UEFA create the
European Champions' Cup, but after objections from
The Football League and the
FA Chelsea were persuaded to withdraw from the competition before it started.
[13] Chelsea failed to build on this success, and spent the remainder of the 1950s in mid-table. Drake was dismissed in 1961 and replaced by player-coach
Tommy Docherty.
Docherty built a new team around the group of talented young players emerging from the club's youth set-up and Chelsea challenged for honours throughout the 1960s, enduring several near-misses. They were on course for a treble of League, FA Cup and League Cup going into the final stages of the 1964–65 season, winning the League Cup but faltering late on in the other two.
[14] In three seasons the side were beaten in three major semi-finals and were FA Cup runners-up. Under Docherty's successor,
Dave Sexton, Chelsea won the
FA Cup in 1970, beating
Leeds United 2–1 in a final replay. Chelsea took their first European honour, a
UEFA Cup Winners' Cup triumph, the following year, with another replayed win, this time over
Real Madrid in Athens.
The late 1970s through to the 1980s was a turbulent period for Chelsea. An ambitious redevelopment of Stamford Bridge threatened the financial stability of the club,
[15] star players were sold and the team were relegated. Further problems were caused by a notorious
hooligan element among the support, which was to plague the club throughout the decade.
[16]In 1982 Chelsea were, at the nadir of their fortunes, acquired by
Ken Bates for the nominal sum of £1, although by now the Stamford Bridge freehold had been sold to property developers, meaning the club faced losing their home.
[17] On the pitch, the team had fared little better, coming close to relegation to the
Third Division for the first time, but in 1983 manager
John Neal put together an impressive new team for minimal outlay. Chelsea won the
Second Division title in 1983–84 and established themselves in the top division, before being relegated again in 1988. The club bounced back immediately by winning the Second Division championship in 1988–89.

Chart showing the progress of Chelsea's league finishes from 1905–1906 to
2007–08
After a long-running legal battle, Bates reunited the stadium freehold with the club in 1992 by doing a deal with the banks of the property developers, who had been bankrupted by a market crash.
[18] Chelsea's form in the new Premier League was unconvincing, although they did reach the
1994 FA Cup Final. It was not until the appointment of former
European Footballer of the Year Ruud Gullit as player-manager in 1996 that their fortunes changed. He added several top-class international players to the side, as the club
won the FA Cup in 1997 and established themselves as one of England's top sides again. Gullit was replaced by
Gianluca Vialli, who led the team to victory in the
League Cup Final and the
Cup Winners' Cup Final in 1998, the
FA Cup in 2000 and the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals in 2000. Vialli was sacked in favour of another Italian,
Claudio Ranieri, who guided Chelsea to the
2002 FA Cup Final and Champions League qualification in 2002–03.
In June 2003, Bates sold Chelsea to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich for £140 million, completing what was then the biggest-ever sale of an English football club.
[4] Over £100 million was spent on new players, but Ranieri was unable to deliver any trophies, so he was replaced by Portuguese coach
José Mourinho. Under Mourinho, Chelsea became the fifth English team to win back-to-back league championships since the Second World War (
2004–05 and
2005–06),
[19] in addition to winning an FA Cup (
2007) and two League Cups (
2005 and
2007). In September 2007 Mourinho was replaced by
Avram Grant,
[20] who led the club to their
first UEFA Champions League final, which they lost on
penalties to
Manchester United. Grant was fired days later
[21] and succeeded by
Luiz Felipe Scolari in July 2008.
[22]
Scolari spent only seven months in the job before being dismissed after a string of poor results.
[23] Russia coach
Guus Hiddink was appointed caretaker manager until the end of the 2008–09 season,
[24] and guided Chelsea to a second
FA Cup triumph in three years.
[25] Two days later, former
Milan coach
Carlo Ancelotti was confirmed as Chelsea's new manager.
[26] In his first season, Ancelotti led Chelsea to their first
league and
FA Cup "
Double"; in addition, Chelsea became the first English top-flight side to score over 100 league goals in a season since
1963.
[27] Ancelotti parted company with Chelsea in May 2011 and was replaced by then Porto coach
André Villas-Boas.
[28] In March 2012, Villas-Boas parted company with Chelsea after a poor run of results and former Chelsea player
Roberto Di Matteo was appointed as interim first team manager. Di Matteo led the club to the
UEFA Champions League final and a seventh
FA Cup success.
[29]