To mark three decades to the day since the first modern-era game played by what were then Chelsea Ladies, we tell the story of those embryonic years for our women's team...
‘At last – the official Chelsea women’s football team.’
‘We will show that women can play football and just as well as the men.’
With those lines in the matchday programme for one of the Chelsea men’s games at the start of the 1990s, the manager of a new Chelsea Women’s team, Tony Farmer, announced the fresh project to the Blues fanbase.
However he did admit there was a lot of catching up to do with the likes of Arsenal, Wimbledon and Millwall who were leading the way in London with long-established women’s teams playing in a new national league.
The aim was to surpass those outfits but for Chelsea, who started with around 50 players training twice a week with a view to fielding two senior teams and one Under-14 side, it was to be the local leagues. We were starting small and the players could be found at Stamford Bridge on men’s match days selling lottery tickets to raise funds for the side.
The first campaign for what came to be named Chelsea Ladies was 1992/93, coincidentally a sea-change season for the men’s game in general with the start of the Premier League and the Champions League. Our women finished third in the Greater London Women’s League Division Three, behind Barnet and Mill Hill.
1993/94 however brought the first promotion, the team remaining unbeaten as they stormed to the championship. Often fielding seven players under the age of 16, they also beat four First Division sides in various competitions. Crowds ranged from a handful to 150. Promotion was directly from that Third Division into the Greater London First Division.
A second successive promotion elevated the team to the local Premier Division with striker Julie Newell prominent in these early seasons (captain Marina Batten is pictured at the top of this page). Although the kit matched the one worn by the Chelsea men of the day, it was notable the shirt sponsor differed.
The National League was now the target but at the start of the first Premier League season, top players left for Arsenal. Chelsea were still a long way off being able to compete with the top sides but we did enter the Women’s FA Cup for the first time. That brought its own difficulties with the cost of travel to Newcastle for a replay sending the season’s costs up significantly.
-We pick up the story in part two tomorrow with a Wembley appearance at the 1997 FA Cup final...