Chelsea is a mega club based in London. It was founded on the 14th March 1905, and progressed to spend most of its history playing in the top level of English soccer. Their first league success arrived in 1954/55 (50 years from the founding date!), but it took them another 50 years to win another league, under the guidance of successful Portuguese manager Jose Mourinho in 2004/05. The takeover by Russian oil tycoon Roman Abramovich was a big turning point for Chelsea, which started to attract world class players to the Russian's millions. More recently, the Russian billionaire's personal fortune has suffered a lot due to the economic crisis, and he started cutting spending on the soccer club.
Ever since the beginning of the club, Chelsea has been playing at Stamford Bridge. Currently, its capacity stands at around 42500. Although its fanbase has increased rapidly in the 21st century, the club has only won 3 league titles. Two of them are attributable to Jose Mourinho and his team. Due to a disagreement with the administration, Mourinho was fired and in came former director of soccer Avram Grant. With a strong expectation from the media that Grant would be a major flop, he eventually impressed everyone by leading Chelsea to 2nd in the league and runners-up in the Champions League 2007/08 in Moscow. However, this alone did not satisfy Abramovich, and most of the management including Grant and newly-appointed assistant manager Henk ten Cate were sent packing. Scolari was brought in, but has done a worse job than Grant altogether with regards to the Premier League. Scolari was relieved of his duties on the 9th February, as Abramovich has enough on his mind with his bad investment in oil to tolerate a trophy-less season at his second-best investment.
Chelsea jerseys are manufactured by German sportswear manufacturers Adidas and they are sponsored by telecommunications company Samsung. The Adidas contract runs until 2011, but it will probably be renewed further beyond that date. The nickname the Blues comes from the traditional blue home jersey colour. Chelsea players have always worn blue for the home kit, but at the beginning, the jerseys had a lighter shade. The traditional colours for the away kit are yellow or else white. Unlike the home kit, exceptions did exist and will exist. The current season is one such exception, as the away jersey is smart black. The third jersey of the club from London is yellow with a touch of blue.
Here is the archive of all Chelsea soccer jersey articles:
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Other EPL Jerseys