May 29, 1905: Chelsea Football Club are admitted to Division Two of England's Football League. This should not have happened so soon.
In 1904, Gus Mears bought Stamford Bridge, a track & field facility in Fulham, West London, with the aim of turning it into a football ground (soccer stadium). An offer to lease it to nearby Fulham Football Club was turned down, so Mears opted to found his own club to use the stadium.
As there was already a team named Fulham in the Borough, the name of the adjacent borough of Chelsea was chosen. And so, Chelsea F.C. was founded on March 10, 1905 at The Rising Sun pub. It was located opposite what is now the stadium's main entrance on Fulham Road, and is now named The Butcher's Hook.
At first, Chelsea attempted to join the Southern League, as England's main Football League was mostly teams from the Midlands and the North. One exception was Woolwich Arsenal, then in Kent, but the locality would eventually be redrawn into South-East London. The team that would, in 1913, move across the River Thames to Highbury in North London, and rename themselves simply Arsenal F.C., were in no position to object to Chelsea's admission to the Southern League.
One team in the area did: Tottenham Hotspur, whose White Hart Lane ground was then in Middlesex, but would later be redrawn into North London. Never mind that Fulham, Millwall (South), West Ham United (East), Clapton Orient (now Leyton Orient, East) and Woolwich Arsenal were all already considered "London clubs," and that Orient were within 5 miles of White Hart Lane, and unlike The Lane were then actually in London; whereas Chelsea's stadium, Stamford Bridge, was 13 miles away by the shortest land route. And yet, Tottenham's objection was upheld by the Southern League.
Thus rejected, Mears aimed higher, and applied for membership for Chelsea in the Football League Division Two. And they got it.
Under normal circumstances, a team would have had to start in a lower league, prove itself commercially viable there -- proving itself competitively viable was a secondary concern -- before being admitted to the Football League. But Chelsea got special treatment. It was the first time. It would not be the last.
Mears died in 1912. For a long time after that, Chelsea were regarded as something of a joke. From 1905-06 until 1953-54, only once, in 1919-20, when they were 3rd, did they finish higher than 8th in the Football League Division One. Nor did they have much success in the FA Cup: They reached the Final in 1915; and the Semifinals in 1911, 1920, 1932, 1950 and 1952. In 1933, English comedian Norman Long wrote and recorded a song about various strange, even impossible things happening. The title was "On the Day That Chelsea Went and Won the Cup."
They won their 1st title in their 50th Anniversary year, 1955. Their manager was Ted Drake, a former Arsenal forward, who thus became the 1st man to win the League as both a non-managing player and a non-playing manager. (The 2nd would also be a former Arsenal player: Joe Mercer with Manchester City in 1968.)
Chelsea got better in the mid-1960s, and began to be the favored team of the West End, London's version of Broadway, and of "Swinging London." Actors filming movies in London and environs were invited to Stamford Bridge by team management. American acting bombshell Raquel Welch even posed in a Chelsea kit.
In 1965, they finished 3rd, reached the Semifinal of the FA Cup, and won the League Cup. They reached the FA Cup's Semifinal in 1966, its Final in 1967, and finally winning it in 1970, defeating Leeds United in a replay, also finishing 3rd that season. The following season, they won the European Cup Winners' Cup.
As the team declined in the 1970s, the fan base took on more sinister overtones. With most London clubs having working-class roots, the right-wing National Front began to recruit among young male Chelsea fans. A hooligan "firm" called the Chelsea Headhunters was formed, and their battles, on the streets and in the stands, with West Ham's Inter-City Firm and other firms became legendary. Despite their later success being very much dependent on black players, Chelsea fandom still retains a tinge of racism.
So, in the 1980s, Stamford Bridge was a no-go zone: The fans were dangerous, the stadium was run-down, and the team was weak. In the 1990s, new rich owners put a lot of money into rebuilding the stadium, stand by stand, and bought better players, too. Chelsea won the FA Cup in 1997 and 2000, the League Cup in 1998, and the Cup Winners' Cup in 1998.
In 2003, Russian oil oligarch Roman Abramovich bought the team, and out-spent the other big teams in the Premier League -- Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool F.C. -- by a wide margin. His dirty billions made Chelsea, for a time, England's most successful team, and a worldwide brand.
Before sanctions on Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine forced him to sell the team in 2022, he bought them -- through talented players, and, it has been noticed, referees looking the other way while some of their players executed dirty tackles and ridiculous dives for penalties -- the Premier League title in 2005, '06, '10, '15 and '17; the FA Cup in 2007, '09, '10, '12 and '18; the League Cup in 2005, '07 and '15; the UEFA Europa League in 2013 and '19; and the UEFA Champions League in 2012 and 2021, making them the 1st (and, through 2022, the only) team in London to win it.
Think about it: If Tottenham hadn't been such pricks in 1905, Chelsea might never have gotten into the Football League, might have gone out of business, wouldn't be a bigger club today than Tottenham, and English football fans would have been spared the likes of Roman Abramovich, Jose Mourinho, John Terry, Arjen Robben, Michael Ballack, Didier Drogba and Diego Costa. (True, they all could have been involved with other English clubs, but it wouldn't have been with Chelsea.) And various teams' fans, and their own hooligan "firms," wouldn't have kept getting their heads handed to them by the Chelsea Headhunters.
This is, perhaps, not the first act of stupidity by Tottenham as a club. But it is the first big one, and, while it took nearly a century, it did come back to bite them in the ass. (Or "the arse," if you prefer the English version.)
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May 29, 1905 was a Monday. English actor Sebastian Shaw was born on this day. American audiences know him best as the dying and Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
These baseball games were played that day:
* The New York Highlanders lost to the Philadelphia Athletics, 2-1 at Columbia Park in Philadelphia. Rube Waddell, probably the best pitcher in the American League at the time, and definitely the weirdest one, outpitched Al Orth, a pitcher known as "The Curveless Wonder." Willie Keeler went 1-for-5 for the Highlanders, who became the New York Yankees in 1913.
* The New York Giants beat their arch-rivals, the Brooklyn Superbas, 8-5 at the Polo Grounds. The Superbas became the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1911.
* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Boston Beaneaters, 10-7 at the South End Grounds in Boston.
* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-3 at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh. Honus Wagner went 3-for-5 with an RBI.
* The Cleveland Naps beat the St. Louis Browns, 5-3 at League Park in Cleveland. The Naps were named for their manager, 2nd baseman and best player, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie, who went 1-for-3 with a walk in this game.
* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Chicago Cubs, 6-3 at The Palace of the Fans in Cincinnati.
* The Chicago White Sox beat the Detroit Tigers, 9-1 at South Side Park in Chicago.
* And the Boston Americans, forerunners of the Red Sox, and the Washington Senators were not scheduled.
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