Happy Birthday dear Chelsea!
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Boyne
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Indeed. I found this in an article about the battle:
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has it that a giant Norse axeman (possibly armed with a Dane Axe) blocked the narrow crossing and single-handedly held up the entire English army. The story is that this axeman cut down up to 40 Englishmen and was defeated only when an English soldier floated under the bridge in a half-barrel and thrust his spear through the planks in the bridge, mortally wounding the axeman.
https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2020/03/10/happy-birthday-chelsea--six-facts-you-may-not-know-about-our-fou
Official site,
Happy Birthday Chelsea! Six facts you may not know about our founding,
To mark our founding 115 years ago today, we have six facts you may not know about Chelsea Football Club’s earliest days, including information on proposed names, nicknames and colours.
It was 10 March 1905 when our great club was officially created in the Rising Sun pub opposite the ground – now the Butcher’s Hook.
Here we have six more nuggets of information for you to learn more about our founding…
In early meetings various names for the proposed new club were discussed, including Kensington FC, London United, and Stamford Bridge FC. Frederick Parker argued for using Chelsea, saying that as an official of the London Athletic Club he had received letters redirected from the Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire – a famous battleground in 1066.
The Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066
London Athletics Club meetings were held at the new Stamford Bridge in June 1905 before a ball was kicked on the pitch. All that could be seen of the East Stand, which opened two months later, was its huge supporting framework made of iron shipped down from a Glasgow foundry at a cost of £2,000 (around £250,000 today).
An athletics meeting at Stamford Bridge in 1900
The annual rent paid by Chelsea FC to the owner of Stamford Bridge, Gus Mears, for use of the stadium during the 1905/06 season was £1,500 (around £185,000 today). The London Athletic Club, who continued to use facilities at the redeveloped stadium during the summer, forked out just £250 (around £30,000).
Stamford Bridge pictured early in the 20th century
The matchday programme, the Chelsea FC Chronicle, encouraged a debate started in a local newspaper about what should be the new club’s nickname. They thought about the Chinamen (local Chelsea pottery), the Buns (Chelsea buns), as well as the Cherubs, the Colts, and the Little Strangers. The Chronicle eventually stuck with ‘the Pensioners’ (after the famous occupants of the nearby Royal Hospital) despite initially feeling it was ‘rather suggestive of the lights of other days’ and adopting ‘Buns.’
A Chelsea Pensioner on the Chelsea FC Chronicle in 1915
The Pensioners’ original shirt colour was described in the Chronicle as light blue. It was actually ‘Eton blue’, and taken from the horse-racing silks of Lord Cadogan, a local landowner and the club’s first President. The Pensioners switched to our iconic royal blue shirt for the first time in 1907/08.
Martin Moran sporting our very first home kit
Heard the one about the Irishman, two Englishmen, and eight Scotsmen? No? Well that was the make-up of the first eleven Chelsea ever fielded, at Stockport County on 2 September 1905: William Foulke (English), Bob Mackie (Scottish), Bob McEwan (Scottish), Tommy Miller (Scottish), Bob McRoberts (Scottish), Geordie Key (Scottish), Martin Moran (Scottish), Jacky Robertson (Scottish), Davie Copeland (Scottish), Jimmy Windridge (English), Jack Kirwan (Ireland).
Back row L-R: JT Robertson (manager), HA Keare (director), Byrne, FW Parker, (financial secretary), McRoberts, William 'Fatty' Foulke (captain), Copeland, Mackie, Miller, (trainer), McEwan, Ransom, (trainer), Craigie, W Lewis (secretary), J White (assistant trainer); Middle row L-R: Moran, Donaghy, T Millet, Jas Robertson, O'Hara, Windridge, Key, Kirwan; Front four L-R: McDowland, Seaton, Wolfe, Watson
Chelsea's Scottish stars...
Tags:
Chelsea History
Official site,
Happy Birthday Chelsea! Six facts you may not know about our founding,
To mark our founding 115 years ago today, we have six facts you may not know about Chelsea Football Club’s earliest days, including information on proposed names, nicknames and colours.
It was 10 March 1905 when our great club was officially created in the Rising Sun pub opposite the ground – now the Butcher’s Hook.
Here we have six more nuggets of information for you to learn more about our founding…
In early meetings various names for the proposed new club were discussed, including Kensington FC, London United, and Stamford Bridge FC. Frederick Parker argued for using Chelsea, saying that as an official of the London Athletic Club he had received letters redirected from the Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire – a famous battleground in 1066.
The Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066
London Athletics Club meetings were held at the new Stamford Bridge in June 1905 before a ball was kicked on the pitch. All that could be seen of the East Stand, which opened two months later, was its huge supporting framework made of iron shipped down from a Glasgow foundry at a cost of £2,000 (around £250,000 today).
An athletics meeting at Stamford Bridge in 1900
The annual rent paid by Chelsea FC to the owner of Stamford Bridge, Gus Mears, for use of the stadium during the 1905/06 season was £1,500 (around £185,000 today). The London Athletic Club, who continued to use facilities at the redeveloped stadium during the summer, forked out just £250 (around £30,000).
Stamford Bridge pictured early in the 20th century
The matchday programme, the Chelsea FC Chronicle, encouraged a debate started in a local newspaper about what should be the new club’s nickname. They thought about the Chinamen (local Chelsea pottery), the Buns (Chelsea buns), as well as the Cherubs, the Colts, and the Little Strangers. The Chronicle eventually stuck with ‘the Pensioners’ (after the famous occupants of the nearby Royal Hospital) despite initially feeling it was ‘rather suggestive of the lights of other days’ and adopting ‘Buns.’
A Chelsea Pensioner on the Chelsea FC Chronicle in 1915
The Pensioners’ original shirt colour was described in the Chronicle as light blue. It was actually ‘Eton blue’, and taken from the horse-racing silks of Lord Cadogan, a local landowner and the club’s first President. The Pensioners switched to our iconic royal blue shirt for the first time in 1907/08.
Martin Moran sporting our very first home kit
Heard the one about the Irishman, two Englishmen, and eight Scotsmen? No? Well that was the make-up of the first eleven Chelsea ever fielded, at Stockport County on 2 September 1905: William Foulke (English), Bob Mackie (Scottish), Bob McEwan (Scottish), Tommy Miller (Scottish), Bob McRoberts (Scottish), Geordie Key (Scottish), Martin Moran (Scottish), Jacky Robertson (Scottish), Davie Copeland (Scottish), Jimmy Windridge (English), Jack Kirwan (Ireland).
Back row L-R: JT Robertson (manager), HA Keare (director), Byrne, FW Parker, (financial secretary), McRoberts, William 'Fatty' Foulke (captain), Copeland, Mackie, Miller, (trainer), McEwan, Ransom, (trainer), Craigie, W Lewis (secretary), J White (assistant trainer); Middle row L-R: Moran, Donaghy, T Millet, Jas Robertson, O'Hara, Windridge, Key, Kirwan; Front four L-R: McDowland, Seaton, Wolfe, Watson
Chelsea's Scottish stars...
Tags:
Chelsea History
strider6004
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Don't think it was coincidence either, it not for the Normans the battle would be remembered as one of the great battles of the English.
The battle was to stop the Norwegian Viking Invasion of northern England by Harold Sigurdsson aka Harold Hardrada, King Harold of England had disbanded his army due to the weather stopping the Norman invasion from the South when he got the news of the Viking Invasion in the North. He rushed to the North and caught the Vikings by surprise as they were not wearing chain mail. The battle was meant to have held for a while around Stamford Bridge before the huge warrior was slain. After the battle only about 24 out of 224 Viking ships sailed home, the rest were dead. As Harold was tidying up there and meeting the locals he then got news the Normans had landed near Hastings.
Despite advice he went straight to fight William for the 9 hour slug fest at Hastings that only stopped as night fell yet Harold was killed.
There is an initiative underway at the moment to recognise the correct site of the battle of Hastings as a field has been found with ditches either side and a Norman abbey and a 2,000 old Yew Tree all mentioned in the Bayeux tapestry. The recognised site has an Abbey yet was built much later and does not have the ditches that claimed so many Norman cavalry lives especially as dark fell towards the end of the battle. The people that have found the site at Crowhurst have also been using radiography equipment and found anomalies of what looks like thousands of buried bodies. They also think Harold chose that field to stop Norman cavalry outflanking him.
As I understand it English Heritage are investigating this inconvenient claim as the tourist industry is geared up to the modern site of Battle though does not have the features described in the historical documents close to the time.
.
OnePeterOsgood
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On this day in 1957, we beat Sparta Prague in a friendly at the Bridge to mark the opening of our first-ever floodlights … I think we won 3-0!
Chelsea 2 Sparta Prague 0
Friendly - 19 March 1957
Noteworthy primarily for the first use of the 170-foot high floodlights at the Bridge by a senior side – though Chelsea’s Juniors had played a private evening match just before this official opener to test, adjust and flaunt the new sparklers. The visitors, reigning champions of Czechoslovakia, boasted nine internationals including Kadraba, Hertl and Hledik, and five of the national team that had defeated the fabled Hungarians 4-2 on their home patch a year earlier.
Thirty thousand Londoners turned up to witness the stylish, overplaying Czechs flounder on solid Chelsea defence and swift counter-attack. The Blues won 2-0 with goals from Les Allen (father of later Chelsea player Clive) and Derek Gibbs, both former Chelsea Juniors.
‘If candlelight is kind to the human face,’ enthused one reporter, ‘then floodlighting certainly lends a magic to a football arena.’ The novelty of the excitable weeknight match atmosphere, where noisy thousands become one in the dark and the pitch is lit up like a theatre, led to the introduction of the League Cup in 1960/61.
Crowd of 30,708.
From official site.
OnePeterOsgood
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Thanks, mate, … I was one of the 30,000 Londoners ….
Boyne
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