Stamford Bridge · Profile

Stamford Bridge stands on Fulham Road in Fulham, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, and has been the home of Chelsea since the club was founded in 1905. The ground is older than the team: it opened on 28 April 1877 as an athletics venue, and Chelsea were created specifically to play there. The pitch measures roughly 103 by 68 metres, and the stadium holds just over 40,000 spectators, all seated since the rebuilding of the 1990s.

An athletics ground (1877-1904)

For almost three decades Stamford Bridge was the home of the London Athletic Club, which used it until 1904-05. Football had no permanent place there, and the venue lived off athletics meetings. In 1904 the brothers Gus and Joseph Mears acquired the lease, intending to turn it into a major football ground. They offered it to Fulham, who turned it down for financial reasons. Rather than give up, the Mears brothers founded a club of their own in 1905: Chelsea.

Chelsea arrive and Leitch rebuilds (1905-1935)

The redevelopment was entrusted to Archibald Leitch, the Scottish architect behind many British grounds of the era. Chelsea played their first match there on 4 September 1905, a friendly against Liverpool, and a week later staged their first home league game, against Hull City. The lowest recorded attendance came early: 3,000 for a Second Division fixture with Lincoln City on 17 February 1906. In 1930 a terrace was built at the south end, which supporters nicknamed «The Shed». On 12 October 1935 a league match between Chelsea and Arsenal drew 82,905 spectators, the largest crowd in the stadium's history.

Cup finals, internationals and other sports

Before Wembley took over the FA Cup final in 1923, Stamford Bridge hosted it three years running: in 1920 Aston Villa beat Huddersfield Town 1-0; in 1921 Tottenham Hotspur beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0 in front of 72,805; and in 1922 Huddersfield beat Preston North End 1-0. The ground also staged ten FA Cup semi-finals, ten Charity Shield matches and three England internationals, the last in 1932, while England's amateurs beat the Netherlands 9-1 there in 1909. It hosted rugby union (the All Blacks against Middlesex in 1905), rugby league (Great Britain against New Zealand's All Golds in 1908), baseball in 1914 and the 1924 Women's Olympiad. Speedway ran from 1929 to 1932 and greyhound racing from 31 July 1933 to 1 August 1968. The floodlights were switched on for a senior match for the first time on 19 March 1957, in a friendly against Sparta Prague, and in 1980 Essex met the West Indies there in a floodlit cricket match.

The fight for ownership (1972-1997)

The old East Stand was demolished in 1972, and its three-tier replacement opened at the start of the 1974-75 season. It was the only part of an ambitious redevelopment plan ever completed, and the cost left the club heavily in debt. Ken Bates bought Chelsea for £1 in 1982 but not the ground, whose freehold passed to property developers, first Marler Estates and then Cabra Estates. A long legal battle followed and ended when the developers went bankrupt in 1992. Chelsea Pitch Owners, a supporters' company, was then set up, and in 1997 it bought the freehold, the pitch, the turnstiles and the club name, so that the ground could never again be sold to builders.

An all-seater stadium (1994-2013)

After the Taylor Report of 1990, Stamford Bridge became an all-seater ground. The Shed terrace was knocked down in 1994 and its seated replacement opened for 1997-98. The north stand was completed for the 1996-97 season and is named after Matthew Harding, a club director killed in a helicopter crash in October 1996. The West Stand, first built in 1964-65, was rebuilt from 1997 and finished in 2001. In August of that year the Chelsea Village complex, with two hotels, apartments and restaurants, was completed at a cost of £100 million. The London Monarchs played American football there in 1997. On 23 May 2013 Stamford Bridge hosted the UEFA Women's Champions League final, in the same year that Brazil and Russia drew 1-1 there in a friendly.