Season by Season: 1932/3

1932-3 was a season with the foreboding familiar to any fan of an attractive but ineffective team, of any era. Chelsea had made some significant signings since returning to the top flight, including the prolific Hughie Gallacher and the best keeper of his generation, Vic Woodley.

But early results suggested that veteran manager David Calderhead’s squad needed more than freshening up. It had aged with him.

In fact, thoughts turned to whether the “Sphinx” as this poker-faced Scotsman was known, was still up to the job after more than a quarter of a century. Football, after all, had changed. After the Great War, the world had changed too.

Chelsea’s status as the butt of music hall comedian was still unfortunately alive and well. The swanky west Londoners losing on the south coast to lowly Brighton & Hove Albion was the latest in a long line of FA Cup humiliations. Luckily, high-flying Arsenal lost to Walsall and stole some of our thunder.

And there was consistency in the board’s policy of multi-purposing Stamford Bridge. Stadium owner Joe Mears had ambitions to place Chelsea at the heart of the football establishment while encouraging lucrative non-football fads to be staged in SW6. The two goals were not always complementary.

In December 1932 the stadium hosted the England football team’s surprise international victory over the brilliant Austrian ‘Wunderteam’. Quite what the FA made of Mears’s latest move, though, we can only wonder.

Since 1929 the cinder track around the pitch perimeter had been used by Claude Langdon, a showman and entrepreneur, for high-profile matches of the speedway league, or dirt-track racing, imported from Australia. The Amateur Athletics Association had moved its annual meets to White City because of the disturbance to the running surface.

The Stamford Bridge speedway club had been successful and attractive, with star riders such as Gus Kuhn (pictured, top right) rapidly becoming celebrities of British sport, and between 1928 and 1932 Langdon made himself a fortune. He was soon to fall foul of stadium owner JT Mears's machinations, however.

“Langdon, I’m afraid you’ll have to go. I’m thinking of having greyhound racing here at Chelsea.” Joe Mears breaks the eviction news to speedway supremo Claude Langdon

Mears, always with an eye for novelty, had already decided that speedway had had its day, and informed Langdon. The Stamford Bridge landlord had noted the swift emergence of a new proletarian sport as a magnet for betting enthusiasts and, despite moral panic voiced in Parliament, wanted to be in at the start of greyhound racing.

There may also have been other motives involved: it is interesting to note that two of the shareholders in the White City, Harringay and Stamford Bridge Greyhound Racing Bookmakers Association were Harry and Joe Sabini, members of the notorious Clerkenwell gang masterminded by Darby Sabini that ran gambling in London.

A controversial aspect of Mears’s leasing agreement with greyhound promoter Major Dixson was the creation of a company called ‘The Stamford Bridge Stadium Ltd’, which would dominate decisions taken regarding the stadium and come back to haunt the football men with its demands for half a century.

On the pitch there was little of note, except one of the most excruciating matches in Chelsea history – at Blackpool, October 29^th 1932. The game had taken place despite icy conditions all across the north-west. As it wore on, with a north-easterly wind driving heavy, freezing sleet into their faces, Chelsea’s ‘southern softies’ began to wilt like precious orchids.

By the end, only six visitors remained on the pitch. The other five were in the dressing room, apparently being tended for exposure. It was also rumoured that the players were under the misapprehension that the referee had to abandon a game when one team was so far depleted. He didn’t, and Blackpool won 0-4.

Len Allum (on debut), Bill Ferguson, Harry Miller, James O’Dowd and Albert Oakton – you did Chelsea's reputation no favours! Luckily, only 7,311 people were there to laugh at the poor dears.

Eventually, a 4-1 win at Maine Road in May secured 18^th place and safety. Finally, after 26 years of under-achievement, the great servant David Calderhead made way for the respected Leslie Knighton as secretary-manager.

In 1932/33...

Facts & Figures: Chelsea escaped relegation by just two points.

Cup run: Third round (losing to Brighton & Hove Albion).

All the rage: Popular music recordings – newly-formed EMI dominates the market for “78” records.

Season by Season: 1924/25

In July 1924, a British Empire athletics squad lost out to its USA counterpart by 3pts to 11. Among the British winners was miler Eric Liddell, immortalised in the film 'Chariots Of Fire.' Even if Chelsea’s footballers were languishing in Division Two for the third time, sportsmen could still light up the venue for an enthusiastic fee-paying public.

Relegation had come at an awkward time in the evolution of the club and during a deep economic depression in the country. The diversification of use that had been the aim of those running the stadium from 1905 was now desperately needed to bring in vital revenue.

The wooing of various sports authorities, old and new, had produced mixed results. (Much like the football team, which without significant new investment in players finished fifth in the Second Division.)

American baseball showcases had begun to be staged. In the November King George V and Queen Mary, along with two princes, watched Chicago Whitesox play the New York Giants.

A few years later, Joe Mears’ manoeuvring delighted the capital’s petrol-heads as the novel sport of motorcycle speedway came to the Bridge; shortly after that, the famous greyhounds arrived.

The hosting of athletics events was in keeping with the stadium’s roots. It had been the home of the London Athletic Association before Chelsea moved in.

“65 sports meetings held in the close season, and when there are no meetings as many as 150 to 200 Athletes are on the ground training” Football League report into the state of Chelsea’s pitch

But multiple use of the playing surface came with a price to pay. The football authorities listened to several complaints from First Division clubs in the early Twenties that the pitch was often not up to standard.

Equally important, the dream of developing a covered stadium that would rival the great football temples of Glasgow did not materialise. Major structural improvements would not come until the Thirties, and a cinder track would surround the pitch for the bikes before a lid was placed over the South Stand.

The biggest loss had come when Chelsea’s hosting of FA Cup Finals ended with the completion of Wembley stadium – a major blow, even though Charity Shields remained in SW6.

On the pitch, Andy Wilson’s skills and Bill Whitton’s goals, plus the continues defensive supremacy of Ben Howard Baker, back in goal, and full-backs Harrow and Smith, made it still worth a visit.

In 1924/25...
Facts and figures: Chelsea’s average crowd in this Second Division season was 31,000
Cup run: First Round, losing to Birmingham City
All the rage: the Charleston arrives in Britain – everybody’s doing it.

Season by Season: 1922/23

On Boxing Day, 1922, the visit of Nottingham Forest was inauspicious. The Midlanders arrived knowing that Chelsea had not won in 11 games, hadn’t troubled the scorers at all during November, and were looking like rivals for relegation from Division One.

Happily, Chelsea won 4-0 on the day, with the less familiar names of Buchanan Sharp and Jimmy Armstrong, with a brace, sharing the rare glory with fading star Harry Ford.

Many of the old names had faded now, and the celebrated Jack Cock was crocked and then moved on to Everton.

It had all looked very different on Monday September 4th at the Bridge, when Sharp and Cock were both on the scoresheet in a 3-2 win over Stoke that put Chelsea top of the League for the first time in our history.

The last 14 games of the season were a nightmare, though, with only a 3-0 win over Bolton earning the maximum two points. We finished in 19th place, just above the relegation slots. Off the field, too, the turmoil of the period has a familiar ring to any supporters who sat through the 1970s. Needless to say we are talking about a scandal surrounding ownership of the land on which Stamford Bridge is built.

“It would appear that from the formation of the club the Mears family have exercised a controlling influence” FA inquiry into the running of Chelsea FC, 1922

Joseph Theophilus Mears, alongside his late brother Gus, had been a founder director of the football club. He was a sports fan who knew better than most how to make money from leisure and entertainment. He ran pubs, built cinemas and owned the steam launches that puffed up the Thames from Eel Pie Island in Twickenham (see advertisement, top left).

After Gus’s death, Joe quietly bought the freehold to the property from their sister, Gus's executrix, Beatrice, who had previously offered the land to the football club at a higher price.

Back in 1920 Mears had first advised the club that as new landlord all rents should be paid to him. He offered an alternative, however: buy the freehold for £42,000 over 14 years.

Sadly, Chelsea could ill afford such a fee. Mears also paid the club relatively little for his lucrative monopoly on all catering inside the Bridge, and all renovations were carried out by his contracting firm at a hefty sum. Matters came to a head in the boardroom in 1922.

An unseemly spat ensued during which Mears attempted to boot his brother-in-law, Beatrice's husband and a fellow building contractor Henry Boyer, off the Chelsea board. Boyer in turn disputed the value of construction work carried out on the ground through Mears's firm, and wrote to the FA.

The FA was appalled at what they read and instigated an inquiry so that for the first time, but certainly not the last, Chelsea’s dirty laundry was washed in public. In 1922 Mr J Howcroft produced a report condemning Chelsea as an unhealthily run club, and demanding changes among the directors - there were too many Mears employees, he felt, including Tom Kinton, his clerk of works - catering arrangements and tendering procedures.

Boyer and Kinton were both ousted in 1922, and in their place came former player Vivian Woodward, who remained for eight years, and Charles Pratt Sr., a local antique dealer. Pratt was briefly chairman in 1935 following Claude Kirby's death, and his son held down the same post between 1966 and 1968.

Unfortunately, history proved that the battle of Stamford Bridge was far from over.

In 1922/23...
Facts and figures: The FA inquiry was told that Joe Mears paid £35, 750 for the freehold of Stamford Bridge
Cup run: Second Round, losing to Southampton after a replay
All the rage: Decaffeinated coffee is invented – skinny latte decaff, anyone?