The Chelsea Museum has added a significant piece of club memorabilia to its collection in the form of John Dempsey’s 1970 FA Cup final replay shirt.
FA Cup third round weekend always triggers memories and Dempsey was in our defence the time we progressed from that stage to famously beat Leeds United, after a replay, to win the first FA Cup in our history.
He wore the number five shirt when helping us edge past our big rivals in English football’s showpiece fixture, in what proved to be a notoriously combative encounter.
Dempsey swapped his shirt with the one worn by Leeds United’s Paul Madeley at the end of the Old Trafford match. Several match-worn items attained over Madeley’s career were recently placed in public auction and the club is delighted to have secured Dempsey’s shirt for the Museum for fans to enjoy for generations to come.
Helping to make this piece of kit so iconic is that only 11 of these outfield shirts, with a yellow badge and yellow number on the usual blue, were ever made, a switch from the white trim of the Wembley game where it was our turn to wear our usual home strip.
This new acquisition reconnects the shirts as Dempsey kindly loaned the Museum Madeley’s shirt from the 1970 replay some years back. The Museum also has the shirts of Peter Osgood, Ron Harris and Ian Hutchinson from the Wembley final, plus Peter Houseman’s tracksuit and the winners’ medals from Ron Harris, Peter Bonetti, Hutchinson and Houseman.
Dempsey played 200 times in all for Chelsea between 1969 and 1977, scoring in the Cup Winners’ Cup final a year after the 1970 triumph.
Our Stadium Tour and Museum at Stamford Bridge recently enjoyed record visitor numbers over the Christmas 2022 period, including the busiest-ever day since first launching in 1999
The Chelsea FC Museum tells the full story of the club from 1905 and showcases an incredible collection of shirts, medals, boots, and artefacts. A more recent addition is ‘The Trophy Room’, which includes five Premier League titles, eight FA Cups, five Women's Super League trophies and - arguably the most iconic of all - the 2012 and 2021 UEFA Champions League and 2021 FIFA Club World Cup trophies.
Tours and the museum run seven days a week (with the exception of home matchdays) and season ticket holders and members receive a two-for-one discount by adding either STH50 or MEM50 when ordering.