GEOFF HURST AND CHELSEA

With much news about dementia and other football related illnesses, I thought mentioning Geoff Hurst today might be appropriate. On November 17th in 1998, Geoff was given his Knighthood, the third member of the 1966 World Cup Squad to receive a "Royal Award". Sir Alf, of course, was the first  in 1967 and Bobby Charlton received his award in 1994. Hurst said the recognition was more important to him than his World Cup "hat trick" against West Germany.

Hurst did spend some time as manager (1979-80) at Chelsea, towards the end of his career and indeed visited my school, Charterhouse, with a mixture of senior players, coaches including the enthusiastic Bobby Gould and youngsters to train on our pitches and play a training game against a "School XI", boys, Old Boys and staff. 

Geoff is talking about Dementia on Talksport this afternoon. You might get it on "catch up".

Further back in history, Chelsea, founded March 9th 1905, on November 18th 1905, were playing their first season in the Football League.* The club, founded by the Mears' family, was sited in the borough of Fulham, could not have been called Fulham FC, because the club already existed. The club mulled over names such as London FC, Kensington FC, Stamford Bridge FC but settled on Chelsea. 

Since it was their first season, they had to play in the Qualifying Rounds of the FA Cup, causing fixture congestion. To catch up, Chelsea had to play two matches in a day. The "First Team" met Burnley at Stamford Bridge in a Second Division game and won 1-0. The First team's end of season was: P38 W22 D9 L7 F90 A37 Pts53 Pos:3rd.

The Chelsea Reserves, who played in the South Eastern League, were sent to Crystal Palace, a Southern League club at the time, for a Third Qualifying Rd tie in the FA Cup. They lost 1-7. It is still the worst defeat for a League side against a "Non-League club" in the cup.                                                                

Prior to this embarrassment, Chelsea (below) had beaten the First Grenadier Guards in the First Qualifying Rd 6-1, then beat Southend United 1-0 before meeting Crystal Palace. Palace were later knocked out in Rd One by Blackpool. They won the Second Division of the Southern League that season.   

 

In that division, Bristol City won it with 13 points more than Chelsea and Man Utd came runners up 9 pts ahead. 67,000 watched Chelsea play United at Stamford Brdige on March 13th. These three met teams in the league like Clapton Orient (who eventually came 20th/20), Glossop (16th), Gainsborough Trinity (15th), Leeds City (6th), Burselm Port Vale (17th) and Leicester Fosse (7th), You can work out which are still League clubs today.

* New teams to join Chelsea in the Football League that season were Leeds City, Clapton Orient and Hull City.