Birth of the Blues: The Early Years of Chelsea FC

By Brian Belton

From the moment Chelsea Football Club was founded in 1905, it quickly established a reputation for signing the best players and drawing vast crowds – and some of the most passionate supporters in the League.

It was a style of play and management that was to come to fore in the Roman Abramovich-era when the club became Champions of Europe. 

But it was forged in the first few years of the team’s existence. 

In ‘Birth of the Blues: The Early Years of Chelase FC’, the leading football writer and historian Brain Belton tells the dramatic story of the club’s birth.

In 1896 Henry Augustus ‘Gus’ Mears bought the Stanford Bridge Athletics Ground in Fulham in West London with a plan for creating the finest football ground in capital. 

He tried to persuade Fulham FC to move there. 

But after he failed, Merars resolved to form his own team, named after the adjacent borough. 

Chelsea FC was born in 1905. 

Right from the start, they signed the stars of the game, and played brilliant attacking football. 

But it was to be a half century before they won their first trophy. 

‘Birth of the Blues’ tells the amazing story of those early years – decades that forged the character of the modern team.

It is a book that no Chelsea fan, or any football devotee, will want to miss. 

Brian Belton is the author of ‘Bolton Born: The Early Years of Bolton FC’, ‘When magpies First Flew: Newcastle FC The Early Years’ and numerous books on the history of football. His books on the game are primarily a study and celebration of this global congregation, the life carnival of soccer splendour.

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