Chelsea is an area of south-west London, England, bounded to the south by the River Thames, where its frontage runs from Chelsea Bridge along the Chelsea Embankment, Cheyne Walk, Lots Road and Chelsea Harbour. Its eastern boundary was once defined by the River Westbourne, which is now in a pipe above Sloane Square tube station. The modern eastern boundary is Chelsea Bridge Road and the lower half of Sloane Street, including Sloane Square. To the north and northwest, the area fades into Knightsbridge and South Kensington, but it is safe to say that the area north of King's Road as far northwest as Fulham Road is part of Chelsea. The district is now part of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. From 1900, and until the creation of the Greater London in 1965, it formed the Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea in the County of London.Chelsea Football Club has its grounds at Stamford Bridge, and so is in neighbouring Fulham, not in Chelsea.
Chelsea were founded on 14 March 1905 at The Rising Sun pub (now The Butcher's Hook), opposite the present-day main entrance to the ground on Fulham Road, and were elected to the Football League shortly afterwards.Chelsea have only ever had one home ground, Stamford Bridge, where they have played since foundation. It was officially opened on 28 April 1877. For the first 28 years of its existence it was used almost exclusively by the London Athletics Club as an arena for athletics meetings and not at all for football. In 1904 the ground was acquired by businessman Gus Mears and his brother Joseph, who had previously acquired additional land (formerly a large market garden) with the aim of staging football matches on the now 12.5 acre site.Stamford Bridge was designed for the Mears family by the noted football architect Archibald Leitch. They offered to lease the stadium to Fulham Football Club, but the offer was turned down. As a consequence, the owners decided to form their own football club to occupy their new ground. Most football clubs were founded first, and then sought grounds in which to play, but Chelsea were founded for Stamford Bridge.
The young Pieman made his first visit to Stamford Bridge whilst still a secondary school pupil. The journey was made by by public transport and the nearby Fulham Broadway station was used before and after the match. Standing on the Shed terrace a tame 1-1 draw was witnessed in an end of season encounter that does not stick in the memory.
Mr Pie, I'm afraid that my memories of this day are a lot more traumatic being a Chelsea boy and all, we were relegated as a result of not winning this game, the first of the three times I've seen the Blues relegated in my supporting life. This was also the season that the only part of Stamford Bridge that is still there to this day, the East stand, was opened, and also the first year that we went from our superb pocket size programme to the standard size effort as posted above, great site, thanks, Kev.
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