Season by Season: 1935/6

Part of the 82,905 crowd at Chelsea v Arsenal, 1935

We are now into themid-Thirties, and there is a look about Chelsea, on and off the pitch. thatwill be familiar to modern-day readers.

Supporters from all overLondon are flocking to the Archibald Leitch-designed Stamford Bridge ground towatch a team full of glamorous, international stars. That they may haveunderperformed is also a recognisable trait for long-standing fans.

Our attack boast some ofthe best players from across the British Isles in Joe Bambrick, Dickie Spence,George Mills and new man, the veteran Harry Burgess. They would easily outshinetheir defence colleagues – and there was nothing new about that.

“If you went to Chelsea and you were any good you lived like a king. It was like a gentlemen’s club. You didn’t get the money, but it was all paid for.’  Martin, son of Harry Burgess

And what of the stadiumitself? In a Premier League era when diversification of use of club premises isseen as vital, Chelsea’s solution – greyhounds rubbing shoulders withfootballers – may seen an unlikely one. But the dogs’ kennels are therebehind the North Stand and the racing attracted crowds – and even employmentfor some former stars of the Pensioners.

In fact, the North Standitself (begun in 1939 and still in use in the early 1970s) and the legendaryShed (erected in the mid-1930s) were openly built for the comfort of thedog-fanciers rather than the soccer fans.

There was a sense ofrenewal, too, in the administration. The veteran Chelsea board was decimated inthe space of weeks by the loss of vice-chairman and stadium entrepreneur JoeMears, assistant secretary Bert Palmer (with the club since 1907) and clubsecretary Claude Kirby, solid and sometimes inspirational captain of a shipthat often found itself in troubled waters. Young blood arrived in theboardroom in the shape of Joe Mears junior, the dominant figure of the FulhamRoad club for the next three decades.

On the field, after a poorstart to the 1935-6 campaign the Pensioners started to play some wonderfulattacking football. Bambrick, a legend with the blues of Linfield, had actuallyscored 94 goals in one season for the Irish club. His Ireland internationalrecord included six in one match against Wales.

He, Mills, one of ourall-time great netfinders, Spence and Burgess all hit double figures as LeslieKnighton’s Chelsea found their First Division range.

Just two season lateranother war would decimate British life, but just now, football in SW6 wasbuzzing again, and we would finish a respectable eighth, our best for a decadeand half. 65,000 came to watch high-flying Sunderland’s visit at the end ofSeptember, a 3-1 home win. It set up the arrival of 4^th-placedArsenal on October 12^th superbly.

Bambrick grabbed theequaliser that shared the points, but more poignantly a Football League recordcrowd of 82,905 filled the heaving stadium. It remains our largest officialattendance.

At the end of thecampaign, Knighton had achieved Chelsea’s highest finish – eighth in the topflight – since 1920.

In 1935/6...

Facts & figures:Amazingly, in this tense prewar period, Chelsea tour Holland, Germany andPoland in the summer.

League finish: Eighth in Division One, a 15-year high.

Cup run: Reached the fifth round, losing to Fulham in a replay.

All the rage: Flying thepopular ‘budget’ aircraft, the tiny Flea.

Season by Season: 1928/29

The crowds still came. The players – their mid-blue draw-stringed shirts, white shorts and dark socks now part of the scenery in the Second Division – still laboured.

Chelsea’s form was as depressed as the national economy. The Pensioners finished this season a dismal ninth and a promising FA Cup campaign in which they had stormed past Everton 2-0 had fizzled out.

Drastic action appeared necessary. Particularly in the context of the time, Chelsea’s next move in the close season of 1929 was typically radical, and likely to have been the brainchild of chairman Claude Kirby, a football visionary and shipping broker.

Here also we find an enduring, occasional theme in Chelsea’s history: helping foreign national teams prepare for a World Cup.

In the Sixties, Tommy Docherty’s Blues, with their 'Latin-American-style' attacking full-backs Eddie McCreadie and Ken Shellito, accepted an offer to play a series of friendly matches against Germany intended to increase the experience of the likes of the young Beckenbauer before the 1966 World Cup.

The precedent was set, however, by his fellow Scot David Calderhead agreeing to send his players on a gruelling boat trip across the Atlantic to South America to play matches against representative XIs from Argentina, Brazil and the Olympic champions of Uruguay.

The games, played in massive, vibrant stadiums, also saw Chelsea line-up against great clubs of the region such as Boca Juniors and racing Club of Argentina, and Sao Paolo of Brazil - Chelsea becoming her first professional side to play that city.

“We really learned the meaning of team-work out there, and the fortnight’s sea voyage on the way home set us up for the big effort.” Great Chelsea forward Andy Wilson on the Pensioners’ epic post-season tour of South America

The Pensioners also introduced another Kirby innovation, numbered shirts (pictured), to the region (earning the nickname 'Los Numerados'), and played under floodlights for the first time, in Rio, decades before the experience came to London.

Uruguay, celebrating its centenary year in 1930, had been selected by Fifa as the venue for the first ever World Cup that year. Unlike 1966, no England team would be participating. (Many other European associations also baulked at the journey time, cost and time involved, not to mention their concerns about the climate.)

In the space of six weeks' touring Chelsea edged a Buenos Aires XI 3-2, lost 0-4 to Racing, beat another Buenos Aires select 1-0, went down 3-4 in an epic tussle with Boca Juniors; grippingly held Sao Paolo 4-4 and then lost to them 2-3, drew with a Rio de Janeiro representative side 1-1, and finally faced a Montevideo XI.

The visitors were outdone in the first match 1-2, but triumphed in the second, played at the newly-built 100,000 Centenario Stadium in the Uruguayan capital, by two goals to one. The tourists left a lasting impression in the region, and steamed out of La Plata with the cheers of the South American crowds ringing in their ears after an experience they would never forget.

The matches against high class European opposition were excellent practice for the locals too. Masterminded by the early genius of South American football, Juan Carlos Bertone, those Montevideo XIs effectively comprised the Uruguayan national side.

Thirteen months later, Bertone’s men lifted the 'Victoire aux Ailes d'Or' World Cup trophy, having beaten Argentina in the final.

The South Americans were not the only ones to benefit from the previous summer's encounters, however. Two months before that win, in May 1930, Chelsea would be promoted back to the First Division.

In 1928/29...
Facts & figures: – ninth place in Division 2 was Chelsea's worst ever finish right up until 1976.
Cup run: Fifth round, losing to Portsmouth after a replay.
All the rage: sexual equality – women are given the same voting rights as men.

Season by Season: 1919/20

Four years of regional league competition and friendlies ended on the opening day of September 1919. In the opening match of the first postwar season of official Football League business, the Chelsea team showed five changes from April 1915 – perhaps less disruption than could reasonably have been hoped for, given the ravages of the Great War.

The six who’d played in Chelsea’s last official League match were stalwarts Walter Bettridge, Jack Harrow, Laurence Abrams, Harold Halse and keeper James Molyneux, now well into his 30s and under pressure from understudy Colin Hampton, a war hero who’d received the Military Medal for Gallantry in Mesopotamia. His bravery and dependability on the less vital stage of association football saw him splitting custodial duties with the popular Moly in what would turn out to be an excellent year for the club.

Chelsea had been handed a reprieve from relegation by a mixture of match-fixing by our rivals for the drop Man United and a League decision to expand the top flight by two clubs – Chelsea and Arsenal.

The board at Stamford Bridge wasted no time in validating the Football League’s decision. Thirty-five thousand people watched at Goodison Park as the slickers from the Big Smoke stunned the reigning Division One title-holders Everton with a 3-2 win, including a penalty from Bob Whittingham that extended his amazing wartime goalscoring sequence.

“A Thrilling Opening. Chelsea Conquer The Champions at Goodison” Athletic News headline, September 1, 1919

What chimed with both sets of fans was that back in 1915 a 2-2 draw at the Bridge had confirmed the Toffeemen as champions. They would finish this campaign in 16th place, despite gaining revenge in London against us a week later with a single goal.

However, personnel change remained inevitable. The ageing Whittingham soon moved on, and in his place arrived another Chelsea and England matinée idol, Jack Cock, from cash-strapped Huddersfield. The Londoner would top-score for the Pensioners for the next three seasons, and managed 21 in his first.

Striker Cock (above, right) hardened Chelsea's image as football's glamour club by singing on the local music hall stage and appearing (along with some of his teammates) in the first-ever football feature film, a silent movie produced by the Samuelson Film Company called, originally, 'The Winning Goal.'

It helped ensure that the arty, actor types still thronged to Stamford Bridge, though quite what the terrace wits made of a team with Hampton at the rear, Dickie in the middle and Cock upfront is not recorded.

This season proved the most successful of David Calderhead’s 26 as manager: his team finished a high-rolling third in the League behind surprise package West Brom and Burnley.

In the FA Cup there was also much at which to thrill. The kings of England and Spain watched consecutive victories in west London over Leicester and Bradford. The Bridge was definitely the place to be. One Manchester newspaper joked that Claude Kirby should have 'By Royal Appointment' engraved above the gates to the stadium.

As the cup semi-final against Aston Villa loomed, the debate reasonably turned to the FA’s decision finally to realise Fred Parker's original dream and stage the final at Stamford Bridge.

Should Chelsea be able to play the final at home? With typical generosity, the Pensioners ended the debate by dipping out 1-3 to Villa, the eventual trophy winners, in front of a crestfallen 37,771 fans.

Days later virtually the same team took the League points off them with a 2-1 win in front of 70,000. It was sets of results such as those that helped create the 'inconsistent' tag worn by generations of Blues.

In 1919/20...
Facts & figures: Jack Cock was signed for £2,500
Cup run: The semi-finals, losing to Aston Villa
All the rage: Mechanical teddy bears