[/color][color=#000099]Chelsea Football Club (pron.: /ˈtʃɛlsiː/) is an English football club based in Fulham, London. Founded in 1905, they play in the Premier League and have spent most of their history in the top tier of English football. Their home is the 41,837-seat Stamford Bridge stadium, where they have played since their establishment.
Chelsea had their first major success in 1955, when they won the league championship, and won various cup competitions during the 1960s, 1970s, 1990s and 2000s. Overall, Chelsea have won four league titles, seven FA Cups, four League Cups and four FA Community Shields. The club have also been successful in continental competitions, winning two UEFA Cup Winners' Cups, one UEFA Super Cup and one UEFA Champions League title. In 2009–10, the club won their first "Double"[3] and in 2012 became the first London club to win the UEFA Champions League.
Chelsea's regular kit colours are royal blue shirts and shorts with white socks. The club's crest has been changed several times in attempts to re-brand the club and modernise its image. The current crest, featuring a ceremonial lion rampant regardant holding a staff, is a modification of the one introduced in the early 1950s. The club has sustained the fifth highest average all-time attendance in English football. Their average home gate for the 2011–12 season was 41,478, the sixth highest in the Premier League. In April 2012 it was ranked by Forbes Magazine as the seventh most valuable football club in the world, at £473 million ($761 million). Since 2003, Chelsea have been owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

History of Chelsea F.C.
In 1904 Gus Mears acquired the Stamford Bridge athletics stadium with the aim of turning it into a football ground. An offer to lease it to nearby Fulham 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 for the new club, having also considered names like Kensington FC, Stamford Bridge FC and London FC. Chelsea were founded on 10 March 1905 at The Rising Sun pub (now The Butcher's Hook),[1] opposite the present-day main entrance to the ground on Fulham Road, and were elected to the Football League shortly afterwards.
The club won promotion to the First Division in their second season, and yo-yoed between the First and Second Divisions in their early years. They reached the 1915 FA Cup Final, where they lost to Sheffield United at Old Trafford, and finished 3rd in the First Division in 1920, the club's best league campaign to that point. Chelsea attracted large crowds and had a reputation for signing big-name players, but success continued to elude the club in the inter-war years. Former Arsenal and England centre-forward Ted Drake became manager in 1952 and proceeded to modernise the club. He removed the club's Chelsea pensioner crest, improved the youth set-up and training regime, rebuilt the side with shrewd signings from the lower divisions and amateur leagues, and led Chelsea to their first major trophy success – the League championship – in 1954–55. The following season saw UEFA create the European Champions' Cup, but after objections from The Football League and the FA Chelsea were persuaded to withdraw from the competition before it started. Chelsea failed to build on this success, and spent the remainder of the 1950s in mid-table. Drake was dismissed in 1961 and replaced by player-coach Tommy Docherty.
Docherty built a new team around the group of talented young players emerging from the club's youth set-up and Chelsea challenged for honours throughout the 1960s, enduring several near-misses. They were on course for a treble of League, FA Cup and League Cup going into the final stages of the 1964–65 season, winning the League Cup but faltering late on in the other two. In three seasons the side were beaten in three major semi-finals and were FA Cup runners-up. Under Docherty's successor, Dave Sexton, Chelsea won the FA Cup in 1970, beating Leeds United 2–1 in a final replay. Chelsea took their first European honour, a UEFA Cup Winners' Cup triumph, the following year, with another replayed win, this time over Real Madrid in Athens.
The late 1970s through to the 1980s was a turbulent period for Chelsea. An ambitious redevelopment of Stamford Bridge threatened the financial stability of the club, star players were sold and the team were relegated. Further problems were caused by a notorious hooligan element among the support, which was to plague the club throughout the decade. In 1982, Chelsea were, at the nadir of their fortunes, acquired by Ken Bates for the nominal sum of £1, although by now the Stamford Bridge freehold had been sold to property developers, meaning the club faced losing their home. On the pitch, the team had fared little better, coming close to relegation to the Third Division for the first time, but in 1983 manager John Neal put together an impressive new team for minimal outlay. Chelsea won the Second Division title in 1983–84 and established themselves in the top division, before being relegated again in 1988. The club bounced back immediately by winning the Second Division championship in 1988–89.

To be Continued...