Chelsea
Football Club is an English football club based in Fulham,
London. Founded in 1905, they play in the Premier League and have spent most of
their history in the top tier of English football. Chelsea has been English
Champions four times, FA Cup winners six times and League Cup winners four
times. They have also achieved European success, winning the UEFA Cup Winners
Cup twice.
Bobby Tambling is Chelsea's all-time top goals
corer, with 202 goals in 370 games (1959–70). Eight other players have also
scored over 100 goals for Chelsea: George Hilsdon (1906–12), George Mills
(1929–39),Roy Bentley (1948–56), Jimmy
Greaves (1957–61), Peter Osgood (1964–74
and 1978–79), Kerry Dixon (1983–92), Frank Lampard (2001–) and Didier
Drogba (2004–). With 193 goals, Dixon
is the only player to have come close to matching Tambling's record. Greaves
holds the record for the most goals scored in one season (43 in 1960–61).
Lampard is the top scorer currently at the club with 184.
Chelsea's biggest winning score line in a
competitive match is 13–0, achieved against Jensen Hautcharge in the Cup
Winners in 1971. The club's biggest top-flight win was an 8–0 victory against
Wigan Athletic in 2010. Chelsea's biggest loss was an 8–1 reverse against Wolverhampton
Wanders in 1953.
Officially, Chelsea's highest home attendance is 82,905 for a First Division match
against Arsenal on 12 October 1935. However, an estimated crowd of over 100,000
attended a friendly match against Soviet team Dynamo Moscow on 13 November
1945. The modernization of Stamford Bridge during the 1990s and the
introduction of all-seater stands mean that neither record will be broken for
the foreseeable future. The current legal capacity of Stamford Bridge is
41,837.
Chelsea
hold the English record for the highest ever points total for a league season
(95), the fewest goals conceded during a league season (15), the highest number
of Premier League victories in a season (29), the highest number of clean
sheets overall in a Premier League season (25) (all set during the 2004-05
season), and the most consecutive clean sheets from the start of a league
season (6, set during the 2005-06 season). The club's 21–0 aggregate victory
over Jaunesse Hautcharge in the UEFA Cup Winners Cup in 1971 remains a record
in European competition. Chelsea hold the record for the longest streak of
unbeaten matches at home in the English top-flight, which lasted 86 matches
from 20 March 2004 to 26 October 2008. They secured the record on 12 August
2007, beating the previous record of 63 matches unbeaten set by Liverpool
between 1978 and 1980. Chelsea's streak of eleven consecutive away league wins,
set between 5 April 2008 and 6 December 2008, is also a record for the English
top flight.
Chelsea has recorded several "firsts"
in English football. Along with Arsenal, they were the first club to play with
shirt numbers on 25 August 1928 in their match against Swansea Town. Chelsea
were the first English side to travel by aero plane to a domestic away match,
when they visited Newcastle United on
19 April 1957, and that First Division side to play a match on a Sunday, when
they faced Stoke City on 27 January
1974. On 26 December 1999, Chelsea became the first British side to field an
entirely foreign starting line-up (no British or Irish players) in a Premier
League match against Southampton.
On 19 May 2007, they became the first team to win
the FA Cup at the new Wembley Stadium, having also been the last to win it at
the old Wembley. After the conclusion of
the 2007–08 seasons, Chelsea became the highest ranked club under UEFA’s
five-years coefficient system used in the seeding of European club competitions
in the following season, the first English club to do so in the 21st century. On the final
day of the 2009–10 seasons, Chelsea became the first team in Premier League
history to score at least 100 goals in a single season. Their £50m purchase of
Fernando Torres in January 2011 is a British record transfer fee. Chelsea holds
the dubious distinction of having conceded the fastest goal in both the FA Cup Final
and the League Cup Final; though they went on to win on both occasions.
