Chelsea Football Club Stadium Tours Greater London hotels:

Visit the changing rooms, sit on the seat of your favourite player, walk up the players' tunnel and hear the crowd roar. The special videos and sound effects are exclusive to the tour department. Chelsea's home stadium is called Stamford Bridge and has a history as varied and unique as the team itself. When did Stamford Bridge open? Stamford Bridge officially opened on 28 April 1877. For the first 28 years of its existence it was used almost exclusively by the London Athletic Club as an arena for athletics meetings and not for football at all. In 1904 the ownership of the ground changed hands when Mr H A (Gus) Mears and his brother, Mr J T Mears, obtained the deeds, having previously acquired additional land (formerly a large market garden) with the aim of establishing a football team there on the now 12.5 acre site. When did Chelsea start playing there? Initially the stadium was offered to Fulham FC to play there, they turned down the chance and so instead a new side, Chelsea FC, was born in 1905 and moved into the new Stamford Bridge stadium. Who designed the stadium? Stamford Bridge was designed by Archibald Leitch and initially included a 120 yard long stand on the East side which could hold 5000 spectators. The other sides were all open in a vast bowl with thousands of tons of material excavated from the building of the underground railway provided high terracing on the West side. The capacity was originally planned to be 100,000 and was the second largest in country behind Crystal Palace - the FA Cup final venue. Why is it called Stamford Bridge?The name Stamford Bridge comes from even further back in history than the stadium itself and is almost arrived through by chance. This 18th century map shows a stream called 'Stanford Creek' which runs along the route of the present day railway line behind the East Stand and flows into the Thames. Where the stream crosses the Fulham Road is marked 'Little Chelsea Bridge' which was originally called Sanford Bridge (from sand ford). While a bridge over the creek on the Kings Road was called Stanbridge (from stone bridge). It seems that these two names together gave rise to Stanford Bridge which later evolved into Stamford Bridge as the adopted name of the stadium.