was founded on 10 March 1905 at The Rising Sun pub (now The Butcher's Hook),[1][10] opposite the present-day main entrance to the ground on Fulham Road, and were elected to the Football League shortly afterwards.

The team reached the 1915 FA Cup final, where they lost to Sheffield United at Old Trafford, and finished third in the First Division in 1920, the club's best league campaign to that point.

The following season saw UEFA create the European Champions' Cup, but after objections from The Football League, Chelsea were persuaded to withdraw from the competition before it started.

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.

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.

After a poor start to the 2007–08 season, Mourinho was replaced by Avram Grant,[37] who led the club to their first UEFA Champions League final, which they lost on penalties to Manchester United.

[41] In 2012, Roberto Di Matteo led Chelsea to their seventh FA Cup,[42] and their first UEFA Champions League title, beating Bayern Munich 4–3 on penalties, the first London club to win the trophy.

[72][73] In the following weeks, reports emerged of Abramovich's involvement in brokering a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia and securing safe evacuation corridors in besieged Ukrainian cities.

On 7 May 2022, Chelsea confirmed that terms had been agreed for a new ownership group, led by Todd Boehly, Clearlake Capital, Mark Walter and Hansjörg Wyss, to acquire the club.

[88] After clashing with the sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley over strategy and management of the young squad,[89][90][91][92] Pochettino agreed to leave the club at the end of the season.

In 1904, the ground was acquired by businessman Gus Mears and his brother Joseph, who had purchased nearby land (formerly a large market garden) with the aim of staging football matches on the now 12.5 acre (51,000 m2) site.

Starting with an open bowl-like design and one grandstand with seating, Stamford Bridge had an original capacity of around 100,000, making it the second biggest stadium in England after Crystal Palace.

The intention was that these facilities would provide extra revenue to support the football side of the business, but they were less successful than hoped and before the Abramovich takeover in 2003 the debt taken on to finance them was a major burden on the club.

[116] In October 2011, a proposal from the club to buy back the freehold to the land on which Stamford Bridge sits was voted down by Chelsea Pitch Owners shareholders.

[117] In May 2012, the club made a formal bid to purchase Battersea Power Station, with a view to developing the site into a new stadium,[118] but lost out to a Malaysian consortium.

[122] In July 2022, it was reported that the club's new owner Todd Boehly had appointed American architect Janet Marie Smith to oversee the renovation of the stadium.

[128] With the new ownership of Roman Abramovich, and the club's centenary approaching, combined with demands from fans for the popular 1950s badge to be restored, it was decided that the crest should be changed again in 2005.

The new crest was officially adopted for the start of the 2005–06 season and marked a return to the older design, used from 1953 to 1986, featuring a blue heraldic lion holding a staff.

[141] In the build-up to the 1997 FA Cup final, the song "Blue Day", performed by Suggs and members of the Chelsea squad, reached number 22 in the UK chart.

The latter is often accompanied by fans throwing celery at each other, although the vegetable was banned inside Stamford Bridge after an incident involving midfielder Cesc Fàbregas at the 2007 League Cup final.

[161][162] Fellow West London clubs Brentford, Fulham and Queens Park Rangers are considered rivals, but less so in recent times as matches have only taken place intermittently due to the teams often being in separate divisions.

Additionally, fans of Arsenal, Brentford, Fulham, Liverpool, Manchester United, QPR, Tottenham and West Ham identified Chelsea as one of their top three rivals.

[214] The club's recent accounting records highlight £26.6m they lost in compensation to former head coach Antonio Conte for sacking and to pay off his backroom staff and the legal costs that followed.

[217] Although the UK government froze Abramovich's assets in United Kingdom on 10 March due to his "close ties with Kremlin", it was made clear that the Chelsea club will be allowed to operate in terms of activities which are football related.

Some of these were a consortium led by ex-Liverpool chairman Sir Martin Broughton, a group of investors led by the Ricketts family (among them Joe and Pete Ricketts), Swiss and American businessmen Hansjörg Wyss and Todd Boehly, Aethel Partners headed by Portuguese Ricardo Santos Silva and British businessman Nick Candy, supported by former Chelsea striker Gianluca Vialli.

[236] The club has a variety of other sponsors and official partners, which include Cadbury, EA Sports, FICO, Hilton Worldwide, 3 (company), Levy Restaurants, MSC Cruises, Oman Air, Parimatch, Rexona, Singha, The St. James, Trivago and BingX.

[239] One-time Chelsea centre forward, Jack Cock, who by then was playing for Millwall, was the star of the film and several scenes were shot at Stamford Bridge, including on the pitch, the boardroom, and the dressing rooms.

[242] In April 2011, Montenegrin comedy series Nijesmo mi od juče made an episode in which Chelsea played against FK Sutjeska Nikšić for qualification of the UEFA Champions League.

[12] In Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 film The 39 Steps, Mr Memory claims that Chelsea last won the Cup in 63 BC, "in the presence of the Emperor Nero.

"[245] Scenes in a 1980 episode of Minder were filmed during a real match at Stamford Bridge between Chelsea and Preston North End with Terry McCann (Dennis Waterman) standing on the terraces.