Chelsea Football
Shirts
Since the arrival of Roman
Abramovich in 2003, Chelsea have emerged as one of the leading forces in world
football, winning multiple Premier League titles and the Champions League in 2012.
The club have been heavily criticised for their high levels of spending, but
their supporters have enjoyed watching some of the greatest players of the
Premier League era, including Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, John Terry and Eden
Hazard.
Chelsea play at Stamford Bridge,
however they have been looking for some time to move to a new stadium as they
look for new solutions to maximise match day revenue, which currently falls
behind a number of the league rivals. The clubs most famous manager is Jose
Mourinho, who won them their first Premier League title, although his
relationship with the fans changed when he took charge of rivals Manchester
United in 2016.
Chelsea Home Shirt
The Chelsea home shirt is blue
and is worn with blue shorts and white socks. Unlike the majority of teams, who
often wore different kits in their formative years, this has always been the
case for Chelsea. The exception was their very first kit, which was worn
between 1905 and 1907.
Chelsea were formed after local
rivals Fulham turned down the opportunity to play at Stamford Bridge as they
could not afford the £1,500 annual rent. Rather than waste their asset – which
was the second largest stadium in England at the time – the owners decided to
form their own club and Chelsea FC was born. The initial kit was racing colours
– a light green jersey – associated with the club’s president the Earl of
Cadogan.
In 1960, Chelsea wore a crest on
their jerseys for the first time in their history. The crest featured a lion
rampant, which was inspired by the civic coat of arms of the London Borough of
Chelsea.
1964 would be an important
landmark in the history of the Chelsea kit as this was the first time they wore
blue shorts, having previously worn white shorts. In 1967, they became the
first English side to wear numbers on their shorts.
Chelsea Away Shirt
In recent years, Chelsea have
rotated between three main colours for their away jersey – black, white and
yellow. In our experience, the black jerseys are always the strongest sellers
of the three.
With the introduction of third
kits to satisfy the demands of European competition, Chelsea generally rotate
between the colours. It has been consistent in recent seasons that the away
shirt has been white and the third kit has been black, with this then being
rotated the following season.
Chelsea Kit History
The first commercial Chelsea
football shirt was manufactured by Umbro in 1975. Umbro were dominant during
this period in English football history and supplied a high number of kits.
Their partnership with Chelsea lasted until 1981, when Le Coq Sportif took over
the contract.
Chelsea returned to Umbro in 1987
and this partnership would last until 2006 when, with the clubs profile higher
than ever after Abramovich’s investment, they signed a deal with Adidas. The
German sportswear giants would continue to partner The Blues through the most
successful period of their history, but at the end of the 2015-2016 season,
Chelsea announced that the following campaign would be their last and they had
paid a £54 million termination fee to cancel their contract with Adidas six
years early and pursue a more lucrative deal with another kit supplier.