Chelsea Football Club are a professional English football club based in West London. They were founded in 1905 and have spent a lot of their history in the top tier of English football, winning it for the first time in 1955. They had to wait 50 years for their next taste of league success, however, becoming only the 4th different team (after Arsenal, Manchester United and Blackburn Rovers) to be crowned Premier League Champions, repeating the feat the following season. They reached the UEFA Champions League final for the first time in their history in 2008, losing on penalties to Manchester United.
Chelsea owe much of their recent success to oil magnate Roman Abramovich, who bought the club in 2003, injecting huge amounts of cash into player transfers and wages, which pushed the team into a position from which they could win the title. The appointment of the charismatic and controversial Jose Mourinho as manager also played no small part in their success. Since their formation, Chelsea have played at their 42,000-seat Stamford Bridge stadium, which is actually situated not in Chelsea, but Fulham. |