Chelsea FC Women (Formally Chelsea Ladies) – History, Performance & Trophies

Formerly known as Chelsea Ladies Football Club Chelsea Football Club Women is the female side associated with Chelsea FC. The team was founded in 1992 and play the majority of their home games as Kingsmeadow, with some of the bigger ones taking place at Stamford Bridge. The official affiliation with the men’s team only came about in 2004, although there has always been approval in place. Chelsea are one the most successful clubs in the women’s game, winning the likes of the top-flight title, FA Cups and League Cups as well as making it to the final of the UEFA Women’s Champions League for the first time in 2020-2021.

History of the Club

In 1992, supporters of Chelsea’s men’s team showed a desire for there to be a women’s side for them to watch. A long-term Chelsea fan named Tony Farmer had become interested in the women’s game after his girlfriend, Val Lightfoot, had joined Crystal Palace. As a result, he chose to write a letter to the team that he supported with a proposal for a women’s side to be added to the roster. Although there was no financial backing from the club originally, Chelsea did offer their approval to the name being associated with the side and did what Farmer wanted by promoting the women’s team in the men’s match day programme.

The club began recruiting youth players, with both Farah Williams and Casey Stoney joining Chelsea as 12-year-olds in 1996 and 1994 respectively. They initially played their matches at Hurlingham Park in Fulham, with Farmer becoming the club’s first manager. Playing their games in the Greater London Women’s Football League, he took them to the Premier League Southern Division before resigning from his post in 1997. It took until 2004 before Chelsea took over the running and funding of the women’s side, which was done through Chelsea’s Football in the Community initiative.

At the end of the 2004-2005 campaign, Chelsea Ladies were promoted to the Premier National Division, which was the name of the top-flight at the time, and have remained in it ever since. When the club won just one point from a possible 18 at the start of the following season, the manager, George Michaelas, was sacked and replaced by Shaun Gore. They finished bottom of the table but won the promotion/relegation play-off with Liverpool, who had finished as the runners-up in the Northern Division, in order to keep their place in the top-flight. It might well have been something of a sliding doors moment, with the club going from strength-to-strength after that.

Bringing in Reinforcements

When Chelsea finished eighth at the end of the 2006-2007 season, Gore decided to bring in some much-needed reinforcements. They included Siobhan Chamberlain, Eniola Aluko and Casey Stoney, who had left the club in 1998 in order to join Arsenal. The club also persuaded Lorrie Fair, an American World Cup winner who was considered to be one of the best midfielders in the game, to join in the January, helping the Blues to finish fifth at the end of the 2007-2008 campaign. For the 2008-2009 season, Chelsea brought in the former Arsenal Ladies reserve team coach Steve Jones as manager, signing some players from the Gunners too.

On the second of July 2008, both Lianne Sanderson and Anita Asante joined from Arsenal Ladies, as well as the veteran player Mary Phillip to give them a bit more know-how. Vic Akers, the Arsenal Ladies manager at the time, was critical of his former players for moving on, calling them ‘disrespectful’, all whilst looking for players from other clubs to boost his own ranks. It didn’t do the Gunners too much harm, with Chelsea finishing third behind Arsenal and Everton. The new-look squad didn’t last long either, with Aluko and Asante departing to America to join the new-look Women’s Professional Soccer league and Fair was injured.

In the January of 2009, Jones left his position as manager and Stoney was asked to be player-manager. She recommended Matt Beard for the job, who had impressed as the Millwall Lionesses boss, so he took over for the 2009-2010 campaign. Although the club had faced a funding cut from the club, players such as John Terry and others in the Chelsea men’s team helped to make up the shortfall. Even so, more disappointment was to follow when Sanderson chose to depart for the WPS in the United States in 2010. Better was to come for Chelsea, though, as the club was one of the eight founding teams of the WSL.

Women’s Super League Era

In the March of 2011, Chelsea successfully made a bid to become one of the eight founding members of the newly formed Women’s Super League. Known by the acronym WSL, the division was to become the new top-flight for the women’s game, with the first match being between the Blues and their London rivals Arsenal, which the Gunners won 1-0. Beard took the Blues to the FA Cup final for the first time, only for Birmingham City to win on a penalty shoot-out after the match itself had ended into a 2-2 draw. After three years as manager, Matt Beard chose to resign in the July of 2012, opening the door for what would become a Chelsea legend.

Emma Hayes was given the Chelsea job in 2012, having previously been the assistant manager at Arsenal. She was one of the first female managers in the Women’s Super League, with some questioning the decision when the Blues finished third from bottom at the end of her first season in charge and then second from bottom at the end of her third season. Chelsea was still only a part-time professional club at that point, but they stuck with Hayes and it proved to be an inspired move. The 2014 season saw Chelsea miss out on the title by goal difference, being pipped to to the post by Liverpool, being managed by, ironically, Matt Beard.

Had Chelsea defeated Manchester City on the final day of the season then the Blues would have finished up as champions, but they lost 2-1. The good news was that their second-place in the WSL meant that the club qualified for the Champions League for the first time in their history. The second-place finish was also matched with semi-final appearances in both the FA Cup and League Cup, losing to the eventual winners in each competition. It might well have been that success that meant that the decision was taken to make many of Chelsea’s players full-time professionals for the first time at the club.

The Professionals

That move was rewarded almost immediately. On the first of August 2015, Chelsea won the Women’s FA Cup for the first time thanks to a 1-0 win over Notts County Ladies at Wembley. Better was to come just two months later when a 4-0 win over Sunderland secured the WSL title and see the Blues win their first league and cup double. In the 2017-2018 season, Chelsea Ladies repeated the feat of a league and cup double, also reaching the semi-finals of the Champions League for the first time. On the 23rd of May 2018, the decision was taken to re-brand the team as Chelsea Football Club Women, which it has remained ever since.

The 2020-2021 season began with the Community Shield, in which the Blues took on Manchester City. Chelsea won it for the first time, following that up with their second League Cup win, which just so happened to be a defence of the trophy as they’d also won it the year before. The final was a 6-0 thrashing of Bristol City, ensuring that the Blues won it in impressive style. On the final day of the WSL season, Chelsea won 5-0 against Reading to hand the club its fourth title, with the club setting the record for the most points won in a season with 57 and tying the record for the number of wins in a season with 18.

Thanks to the win, Chelsea became just the third team to defend the Women’s Super League title, following in the footsteps of Arsenal and Liverpool. Sam Kerr scored the most goals, earning the Golden Boot, whilst Ann-Katrin Berger kept the most clean sheets in order to win the Golden Glove. It led to an article in The Guardian declaring that Chelsea side to be ‘one of the best women’s teams ever to play in England’s top-flight’. The FA Cup final had been delayed until the fifth of December, but Chelsea won that too thanks to a 3-0 win over the then-league leaders Arsenal to secure the domestic treble.

League Performances

It is worth having a look at how Chelsea have got on in the league each season since the club’s inception, which will show the progression of Chelsea FC Women over the years. Here is a look at the league that the club has been in each season as well as the position that they’ve finished and the number of points racked up:

* The title was awarded on a points-per-game basis after the season was ended early

You can see a few things from the above table: firstly, the details kept about the women’s leagues was not all-encompassing during the first few years’ worth of Chelsea’s existence. Secondly, the leagues took quite a long time to settle into any sort of consistency, which is why the number of games being played each season varied in spite of it being the same competition. Even the Women’s Super League took until the 2020-2021 season to gain any sort of reliability in terms of how many teams were competing in it. Chelsea took their time to win it, but once they did there was almost no stopping them.

Cup Performances

As well as competing in the league, Chelsea FC Women have also fought for the FA Cup and League Cup on the domestic front since they were able to do so. They didn’t play in either competition until the 1996-1997 season, which is where we’ll start in terms of look at how they got on. Here is a look at the two competitions and how the Blues did in them each season:

International Competitions

Chelsea FC Women have only been taking part in international competitions since 2013, so the club’s history of involvement with tournaments on that front are a lot less frequent. Even so, it is worth having a look at how they got on when they played in the likes of the Women’s Club Championship and the Champions League. Here is a look at each season they’ve been able to compete in one of the international tournaments as well as how they got on:

The 2020-2021 Champions League Run

In the course of the 2020-2021 season, Chelsea came incredibly close to completing the quadruple. Having secured the Women’s Super League title and the League Cup, the Blues would also go on to win the FA Cup thanks to a dominant display against Arsenal. That meant that they won every trophy that there was to win on the domestic front, but it was in Europe where they nearly became legends. Chelsea reached the final of the Women’s Champions League, facing Spanish side Barcelona with a chance to win the quadruple; albeit with the FA Cup final scheduled to take place in the December when the European final was in May.

The European campaign began for Chelsea with the round of 32, with the Blues drawn to play Benfica. It was a comprehensive victory, seeing the London club win the first-leg 5-0 and the second-leg 3-0, putting them through to a last 16 tie against Atlético Madrid. That was a much tighter affair, with Chelsea winning 2-0 in the first-leg and making it through to the quarter-finals thanks to a 1-1 draw in the second-leg for a 3-1 aggregate win. From there it was a game against German side VfL Wolfsburg, which ended 2-1 in the first-leg and then 3-0 in the second, seeing Chelsea head through to the semi-finals with a 5-1 aggregate win.

It was another German team that the Blues had to make it past in the semi-final match, taking on Bayern Munich. The first leg finished 2-1 to the Germans, but an impressive 4-1 win from Chelsea in the second-leg put the London club through the final of the competition for the first time. It was Barcelona that they had to take on in Gothenburg, with the Spanish giants comprehensively out-playing Chelsea. In the end, an own goal by Melanie Leupolz after just a minute put the Blues on the back foot immediately, with a 14th minute penalty by Alexia Putellas putting the Spaniards in control. Goals from Aitana Bonmatí and Caroline Graham Hansen saw them emerge as 4-0 winners.

Chelsea FC Women’s Home Ground

When the Chelsea Ladies team first began playing matches, they did so at Hurlingham Park in Fulham. During the 2011-2012 season, the club played matches at Imperial Fields, which was the home ground of Tooting & Mitcham United. In 2012, the Blues moved to Wheatsheaf Park, which is located in Staines-upon-Thames and has enough room for a little over 3,000 people. That remained the club’s home until 2017, but in 2016 Chelsea chose to buy Kingsmeadow from AFC Wimbledon in order to help the club buy their new home of Plough Lane. The stadium was bought for both the Chelsea youth and women’s teams to play in.

When big games come around, the Chelsea FC Women’s team plays its games at Stamford Bridge. This allows more people to be in attendance, with the record at the time of writing being 39,398, which is how many people turned up to see the Blues play Barcelona in the second-leg of their semi-final match during the 2023-2024 Women’s Champions League. Sadly, Barcelona won 2-0, having lost to 1-0 to Chelsea in the first-leg.