110 years of fun and banter

Any team that is formed on a whim after a dog bite knows how to laugh at itself!

When that team stands the test of time and celebrates it’s 110th year it has obviously learnt to laugh at others too!

Birthday wishes quite rightly abound everywhere today for Chelsea FC, highlighting the trophies and success our club has achieved, so I’m going to celebrate the laughter and good times, and gloss over the mid 1970’s to early 80’s period when the humour was more gallow orientated!

Chelsea FC was formed after a dog bite and a meeting in a smoky old pub, and wasn’t even first choice for the Stamford Bridge Stadium! Already used as an athletics stadium (plenty of running and diving already) it was going to be sold until Gus Mears’ dog bit his colleague Fred Parker…..

Who says man’s best friend isn’t a dog?

Add to the mix a 22 stone goalkeeper called Fatty Foulkes and you have all the ingredients for a comedy act worthy of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Early rivalries were formed when the other clubs realised that Chelsea FC weren’t a joke outfit however and those rivalries remain to this day (Tottenham being a case in point!)

This match day programme from 1914 has the wording ” I thought one of us would have to go under, and now I’m certain of it”

Credit: Lee at http://carefreelee62.wix.com/chelsealee#!Taunting Spurs in 1914.JPG/zoom/cw8p/image_10bc

Humour and old style gentleman’s banter were what kept Chelsea FC going during the first 50 years waiting for our 1st top flight title.

Over the decades the rivalries have increased in intensity and the banter levels are higher than ever thanks to social media, some of it polite and subtle, some of it…….. well not so!

Chelsea FC fans are renowned for our sense of humour (on good days) and have come up with numerous memorable chants, the origins of one of them “Celery” are still debated today, and then of course there is the modern classic regarding Willian and Tottenham paying for his flight before signing for us!

Credit to Lee: http://carefreelee62.wix.com/chelsealee#!Chelsea Bus.jpg/zoom/ctmc/image_1jzx

Chelsea FC don’t just reserve their humour for other teams, we can be pretty self deprecating too! We are often accused of parking the bus when seeing out games, so when the team coach got stuck entering the Parc des Princes Stadium in Paris earlier this year we of course had fun with this photo!

Nowadays the likes of the “only team with history” Liverpool, and “we’ve got more glory hunters than you” Manchester United have swelled the ranks, joined of course by the “latte swilling, book balancing” fans of Arsenal.

Credit to Lee: http://carefreelee62.wix.com/chelsealee#!LFC CFC History./zoom/cw8p/image_qcg

On a personal level as a fan of Chelsea FC one of the biggest targets for my banter is Liverpool, probably because of the intense European clashes we used to have,and their love of history is very often the subject of my memes!

So as you can see it is has been a humour filled 110 years for Chelsea FC. True there has been a few tears along the way, but the sense of humour, no matter how dark at times is what makes our club stand out from the crowd and why we all can celebrate Chelsea FC’s birthday as one big happy family.

So let’s raise a glass or 3 whilst enjoying this history video courtesy of Talksport.

