It would not be stretching the imagination too much to suggest that comparisons can be made between February 1972 and the present day in the world of Chelsea Football Club. Now, as back then, the Blues were riding high after breaking new ground on the international stage and gearing up for the first domestic title of the new campaign.

Dave Sexton’s side, spearheaded by Peter Osgood and marshalled by skipper Ron Harris, had not long seen off Real Madrid and Manchester City to secure European glory and were about to take on opposition from the north-west at Wembley in the League Cup final. Sound familiar?

In fact, we had even beaten Tottenham Hotspur over a two-legged semi-final to move one step closer to another trophy, just like this season under Thomas Tuchel, although it was Stoke City rather than Liverpool standing between us and glory on that occasion.

In the build-up to that final, our first at Wembley since the FA Cup triumph two years earlier, it was decided to mark the achievement with a specially commissioned record, and thus Blue is the Colour was born.

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Football tracks making their mark on popular culture was certainly not unique at that time. The England World Cup squad had topped the charts prior to the 1970 tournament with Back Home, while Arsenal’s version of Rule Britannia for the FA Cup final the following year peaked at number 16.

However, Chelsea wanted a track that was different ahead of the 1972 League Cup final and so a couple of professional songwriters, Daniel Boone and Peter Lee Stirling, were tasked with putting together a set of lyrics that would both resonate with supporters and fit the image of King’s Road swagger that defined the club during that age.

For Larry Page, a Chelsea supporter and successful record producer, it was too good an opportunity to pass by, and he was soon involved too in providing the orchestral backing music, as well as some crucial blue-tinted lyrical input.

‘My record label was having a few hits around that time with bands like The Troggs and The Kinks so some of the players like Terry Venables and George Graham were always coming by the office,’ recalled Page this week as we spoke to mark the 50th anniversary of the record’s release.

‘I knew loads of the players and I was a big Chelsea supporter as well so I started talking to a few people at the club about this idea. We’d just had a big worldwide hit with Daniel Boone and a track called Beautiful Sunday so we sat down with a few of the guys on that and started talking about doing a song for Chelsea, but the weird thing was that none of them knew anything at all about football.

‘I ended up making a list of things that actually happened at the games and how people enjoyed it, telling them about things like the Shed and “down at the Bridge”, and the fact that it was all so blue, and that’s how it started to come together.

‘We laid a track down and Pete did a little brass arrangement. We wanted to get a marching thing going, something the crowds would get emotional about. I remember later going to Wembley and hearing the brass band playing it, which was really great.’

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Once the lyrics and arrangements had been perfected came the daunting prospect of bringing the players into an Islington recording studio to put their vocals onto the track.

‘I knew Ron Harris because his wife worked as a PA for my business partner so I guessed from the start we were in for a hard time trying to get them together and sing along,’ continued Page.

‘We had cassettes made up so they could go away and learn the lyrics beforehand. Some of them took it seriously and the others didn’t give a monkey’s.’

‘It was just an enjoyable day out because we were certainly no singers - Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones didn’t have to worry about any of us breaking through,’ recalls Paddy Mulligan, an Irish international who was in his third season at Stamford Bridge at the time and had featured in the Cup Winners' Cup triumph the previous May.

‘We didn’t take it too seriously but we just tried to do the best that we could in the recording studio and it went quite well, even if there were quite a few takes of course. The good thing about it was we had fun that day, which made it a lot more enjoyable.

‘We were slagging each other naturally enough. “Tommy Baldwin you can’t sing. Well neither can you Paddy so forget about it!” There was a lot of messing around. I said to Ron Harris, “now don’t kick the microphone Ron, whatever you do!” We were causing all sorts of trouble but we had a smashing day.’

Tommy Baldwin later recalled ‘about 10 cases of lager and a couple of cases of vodka’ being taken into the recording studio to help ease the nerves, with some players admitting on their way to the session that they were more daunted by the prospect of the microphone than they were ahead of a big game.

Teetotal Mulligan believes the squad, totalling about 16 players in all back in those days, relied on the alcohol for Dutch courage rather than essential lubrication of the vocal chords.

‘There were a few bottles and a few shorts thrown in as well,’ said the Dubliner. ‘I knew I couldn’t sing anyway but the lads who were drinking were trying to camouflage the fact that they couldn’t sing and it just got worse.

‘It helped the confidence, if not the vocals. Some of the lads needed a drink for Dutch courage because they were a bit nervous and just in case it went horribly wrong but it didn’t. The mixers made us sound a lot better than we actually were so they did a great job.’

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In fact, such a good job was done on the track that it became an instant hit record, spending 12 weeks in the UK charts and rising to a high of number five. Osgood, who had been involved in that England record ahead of Mexico 1970, felt it was a cut above the rest at the time.

‘The Chelsea boys did it in style,’ the King of Stamford Bridge wrote in his autobiography. ‘It was catchy and original, and for a football team song it was a different class.

‘In those days to reach that position you had to sell around half a million copies. Either Chelsea’s extended fanbase was larger than Arsenal’s and bigger than most imagined, or the song had crossed over into the mainstream big style. We even did Top of the Pops!'

‘The British public are very tolerant but we couldn’t believe it ourselves when it got to number five,’ continued Mulligan. ‘The fact that we ended up on Top of the Pops was unbelievable; what a day that was.

‘It was an afternoon of alcohol being consumed at an alarming rate by some of the lads, probably the majority of them, and you don’t need me to mention the names of who were top of that list.’

The track resonated not just with Chelsea supporters but the general public at large, with stylish SW6 the epicentre of Seventies charm and chic.

‘I had Blue is the Colour in the charts at the same time as All Creatures Great and Small so that was a bit of a difference but everybody loved it,’ said Page. ‘We thought there was no chance at all that the likes of the BBC would play it but the minute you start selling big time then they can’t stop you. Top of the Pops was a nightmare trying to control a few of the boisterous lads in the team but it was absolutely brilliant.’

Before the cameras started rolling, John Dempsey recalls a late costume change was required to get the squad dressed up in suitably appropriate attire for primetime pop television.

‘When we turned up at the studio at BBC Television Centre at White City, we were all wearing our ordinary clothes – leather jackets and whatever – and the producer wasn’t very impressed,’ he later recalled.

‘He said we didn’t look like a proper group so somebody had to rush out to Marks and Spencer’s and come back with 14 identical jumpers. I can’t remember what colour they were, they may have been blue.’

It may surprise many to know that Blue is the Colour was one of 10 tracks recorded by the 1971/72 squad in that single recording session for an entire LP album, with many of the players coaxed into performing lead vocals. Osgood’s Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep is one such hidden gem, while Webb’s typically forthright nature saw him land a starring role of his own as well.

‘I remember David Webb singing Alouette,’ said Page. ‘That was the great thing about it; even if they made a fool of themselves, we were all there laughing in the control room and they enjoyed the laughs.’

‘Webby took over the lead vocals with the album tracks,’ added Mulligan. ‘He thought he was Michael Crawford in Phantom of the Opera and it was good luck to anyone trying to stop him! He was hell-bent on having his say so we just let him go.’

Needless to say, the album has not aged so well, nor did the team’s performance in the League Cup final that followed, a 2-1 defeat to Stoke in early March 1972. Osgood had levelled for the Blues but George Eastham won the day late on in front of almost 100,000 spectators at Wembley.

For Mulligan, who departed south-west London for Crystal Palace later that year, it remains a day of regrets.

‘We were out-and-out favourites, even though we never thought we should be because Stoke were a fine team and had some very classy players,’ he explained. ‘It just didn’t go right for us on the day.

‘Just before half-time, their left-back Mark Pejic managed to get a cross in and he caught me on the ankle and that was the ankle gone. Dave Sexton still wanted me to go back out and I wanted to but I just couldn’t do it. I was in a plaster cast and on crutches for a few weeks after that.

‘We won the FA Cup together in 1970 and the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1971 but losing that final was a huge regret. We really should have won the league title as well during that period with the squad of players that we had and because the spirit at the club was so great but it just didn’t happen for whatever reason.’

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While memories of that final defeat may have waned for many, Blue is the Colour’s legacy lives on. In the preceding years, it was reworked by the Proclaimers as an anthem for MLS side Vancouver Whitecaps, as well as by the Australian cricket team ahead of the 1972 Ashes series.

‘Over the years, it’s been played at so many weddings and funerals it’s unreal, including for ex-players,’ continued Page. ‘If you get the brass band there playing Blue is the Colour, it can be very emotional. There was an Esso Blue advert and Margaret Thatcher was even after it at one point. It’s incredible how you do a song and then everyone’s after the bloody thing!’

Page, now 86 and living in Australia, was particularly moved in the summer of 2015 when Chelsea played in Sydney during a post-season tour, with his old anthem still ringing in the ears of all those in attendance both before and after the match.

‘I went to watch the game and they played the song about five times so that was quite good,’ he added. ‘To hear it played in Sydney in front of 80,000 people, it was very emotional for me actually knowing the history of it all.

‘It’s hard to believe it’s been 50 years but that’s the great thing about the song for me. After we had the hit, everyone was trying Chelsea records and they never worked, but Blue is the Colour just hung in there.’

From Stamford Bridge to Wembley, Munich to Porto, Sydney to Stuttgart, and everywhere else in between, those famous lyrics have provided the soundtrack to so many of the club’s greatest moments.

‘It's absolutely incredible that the song is so popular still today and it’s played at Stamford Bridge before and after every game,’ said Mulligan.

‘The few times I’ve been back over from Ireland, it’s just wonderful to hear that song because it brings back so many memories. I’m a real believer that every club has tradition and history, and this song is a part of that for Chelsea.’

For enduring popularity and lasting legacy, there’s no doubt that Blue is the Colour remains one of the most iconic football records ever produced. After 50 years on our lips, through the sun and rain, there is no better sight or sound than Stamford Bridge belting it out in celebratory unison, and who would bet against it still being sung loud and proud in another half-century from now.