Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge is home to the most successful team since the 2000’s, it has seen several different managers and players and millions of fans have been lucky enough to sit in one of the seats at the bridge and cheer the team they love on, but for those who haven’t? No worries, I’m going to take you through a day at Stamford Bridge, some interesting facts I got told, and photo’s I took during the day, so let’s get started.
Stamford Bridge, The Home of Chelsea. Unfortunately, the English weather was as usual wet and miserable however that didn’t stop me from going to the ground, the most common route taken by fans by train will bring you to Fulham Broadway which is the underground train station that will lead you to up the steps and into a short walk from the stadium itself. Fulham broadway also has a shopping centre less than a minute walk from the stadium so if you fancy a quick bite to eat before the match in one of many of the restaurants on offer and don’t want to spend over the odds, this could be the plan you take.
On this tour I took a wide range of pictures and videos from inside and outside the ground, here is the first video which shows you the general outside outlay of the ground, you’ll notice a common theme, the advertisement and decoration of Chelsea’s first team players on the boards.
Over near the megastore, which unfortunately I did not have time to go in, you will find a massive wall which runs along the right hand side, each slot on this wall is dedicated to a legend of Chelsea Football Club with a fact file about them and their career in blue, you can see the likes of Petr Cech, Desailly and “ The King “ Didier Drogba in this video, but there are many more to explore the further you walk.
Chelsea also has a museum which is located near the Matthew Harding Stand entrance, in here contains many famous pieces, including trophies won, signed shirts, old Chelsea merchandise from 20+ years ago, signed gloves and much more and as you can see in one of the pictures, Kepa Arrizabalaga’s match worn signed gloves from the UEFA Super Cup final are located in the museum along with Mason Mount’s signed boots from the 2018/19 season and Chelsea legend Eden Hazard’s 2016/17 boots.
One very interesting thing I found in the museum was the old model replica of Stamford bridge compared to the current version of Stamford Bridge, the contrast between both is amazing, personally I think the older model actually looked really good and It was quickly a success with a 60,000 crowd in the first year, promotion to Football League Division One after two years and three FA Cup finals were held there between 1920 and 1922, not bad for a team who supposedly had no history before roman, hey!
What you’ve probably all been waiting for is the view inside the ground, here we have it, the view from the Matthew Harding Stand, Shed End Stand and also the Journalists section where you can see little mini black TV’s also which enhance their viewing options and allow them to watch replays of the key moments so they can make a note for their post match pieces. Personally, sitting in this position was great and the view of the pitch is brilliant, for me this would be a dream job.
Chelsea hold many press conferences with manager and players which journalists cover, one interesting fact is that there is a 5 star buffet in the same room every press conference for the media with food being themed if it’s a champions league match, for example our upcoming match vs Lille will be french themed food due to the nation of the opponent being from France.
How about a pitch side view? This was amazing to stand in a similar spot as Thomas Tuchel does and I have to say having first hand experience of standing in his technical area, the view he has of every player is brilliant, if you are playing RB, they are virtually next to you which could be a downside for Reece James if he makes a mistake because you know he would get that earful from Tommy T!
One of the most famous spots for everything Chelsea is the dressing room, did you ever wonder who sits next to each other within the dressing room? Well here’s a video showing you all the current spots within the first team with the shirts showing who sits next to who, unsurprisingly, Spanish boys Kepa and Saul sit next together in the dressing room.
I learnt today that Mason Mount currently sits in the same spot as Chelsea legend Frank Lampard and John Obi Mikel’s spot is taken up by fellow midfielder Mateo Kovacic.
Interesting facts that you might not know from my tour of Stamford Bridge:
- Chelsea have millennium suites which are boxes located on the same row as Mr Roman Abramovich, if you wanted to hire one for 10 years, it would cost you a mammoth £2.5m, with a 15 year waiting list already!
- Nike Offered Chelsea around £900m in a 15 year deal, of which Chelsea are currently 4 years into.
- It costs around £1m every year for the pitch to be maintained.
- Reserved player numbers – Zola 25, Terry 26.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this article and it has given you as much joy as it gave me, I’m lucky enough to go to games regularly but I understand not everyone is able to and this article hopefully gave you an experience of Stamford bridge and what it’s like to visit the home of the newly crowned world champions.
