When Bobby Campbell was sacked as Chelsea manager in 1991, he left the club having won the Second Division title as well as the Full Members’ Cup. Ken Bates presumably thought that ringing the changes would improve the club’s chances of bringing in some more silverware, when none of Ian Porterfield, David Webb or Glenn Hoddle were able to win anything. Things might have been a little different for Hoddle had he not left to take the England job, but when he did the club made a decision to appoint Ruud Gullit as the player-manager. It proved to be an inspired decision, with the Dutch international leading the club to FA Cup glory.
Ruud Gullit’s Honours as Chelsea Manager
| Season | League Titles | Domestic Cups | European/International Cups |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1996/97 | – | FA Cup | – |
Ruud Gullit the Player
Born Rudi Dil on the first of September 1962 in the Dutch city of Amsterdam, he later took on his father’s surname of Gullit. He began playing street football in the Rozendwarsstraat, which was instrumental to his style of play. He joined the Meerboys as a youth player in 1970, then when he was ten years old he moved to the Amsterdam Old West and began playing street football alongside Frank Rijkaard. He joined the DWS club, coming to the attention of the Dutch youth team when he played alongside the likes of Ronald Koeman and Wim Kieft. He signed his first professional contract with HFC Haarlem in 1978.
From there he moved to Feyenoord, having been considered by the likes of Ipswich Town and Arsenal, with the clubs considering £30,000 as too much for a Dutch youngster. He scored 31 goals in 85 league appearances for Feyenoord, winning the league and cup double in his second season. He was named Dutch Footballer of the Year. Sadly, but all too commonly, Gullit suffered racist abuse, with his manager at the time referring to him as ‘Blackie’ and St Mirren supporters spitting on him when he played against them in the September of 1983. He later said it was the ‘saddest night of my life’.
In 1985, PSV Eindhoven paid 1.2 million Dutch guilders to sign him, with Gullit going on to play 68 league games and score 46 goals, again being named the Dutch Footballer of the Year in 1986. He helped PSV win the Eredivisie twice before he moved to AC Milan in 1987. The Italian club paid a world record 18 million guilders to sign him as a replacement for Ray Wilkins. His performances for the club, on the back of how well he’d played for PSV, saw him win the Ballon d’Or in 1987. He won the Scudetto in his first season and the European Cup in his second, retaining the trophy in 1990. He left with three Serie A titles, two SuperCoppa Italianas and two European Cups, amongst other trophies.
Gullit’s Move to Chelsea
In 1993, Gullit was signed by Samdoria, helping the team win the Coppa Italia in the 1993-1994 season. That included scoring the winner against Milan in a 3-2 win, which caused his old club to briefly re-sign him. He then returned to Sampdoria ahead of the end of the 1994-1995 season, briefly working with Sven-Göran Eriksson and learning a lot from him. In the July of 1995 Ruud Gullit was a free transfer, so Chelsea persuaded him to sign for the club under manager Glenn Hoddle. Hoddle played him as a sweeper originally, which was not a role that he was used to playing, resulting in him eventually moving to his more familiar role.
It wasn’t just Gullit that Chelsea signed that summer, with Mark Hughes and Dan Petrescu also coming in and firing the Blues to an FA Cup semi-final. Although they only finished 11th in the Premier League, it gave the Dutchman some sense of English football. His performances once Hoddle pushed him further forward resulted in him being the runner-up to Eric Cantona in the Football of the Year award. The signing of Gullit alongside the arrival of the likes of Gianfranco Zola and Dennis Bergkamp is often credited as being part of the reason why the Premier League has such a worldwide appeal nowadays.
Becoming Manager
In the summer of 1996, Glenn Hoddle departed Chelsea in order to take over as the England manager. Ken Bates decided to ask Gullit to take on the role of player-manager, continuing to play for the Blues at the same time as trying to steer them towards some more silverware. It meant that he was the first Dutch manager in the Premier League, impressing during his first season when he led Chelsea to the FA Cup final. Having defeated West Bromwich Albion, Liverpool, Leicester City and Portsmouth, the Blues made it past Wimbledon in the semi-final to set up a match against Middlesbrough for the trophy.
ON THIS DAY 📸
Chelsea win the FA Cup final against Middlesbrough (1997) #CFC pic.twitter.com/f2E78fKuvV
— Chelsea Photos (@ChelseaInPhotos) May 17, 2024
The match, which took place at Wembley Stadium on the 17th of May 1997, started brilliantly for Chelsea when Roberto Di Matteo scored after just one minute. When Edward Newton scored the Blues’ second after 83 minutes, it meant that Ruud Gullit became the first black manager as well as the first manager from outside the British isles to win the famous trophy. It was also the first piece of major silverware that Chelsea had won in 26 years, with the club’s league finish of sixth being entirely creditable. It seemed like Chelsea had stumbled across a winning formula and a manager who had what it took to take them to success.
Leaving Chelsea
Unfortunately for Gullit, that’s not the way things work in football. Ken Bates decided that he wasn’t doing a good enough job, sacking him over an alleged dispute with the board over his compensation packet, with Gullit denying that that was the case. His final appearance as a player came in the League Cup semi-final first-leg, with his sacking coming before the second-leg. He was dismissed in spite of the fact that the club was in second place in the Premier League, the semi-final of the League Cup and the quarter-final of the European Cup Winners’ Cup. In the wake of the sacking, Bates said, “I didn’t like his arrogance – in fact I never liked him.”
In the August of 1998 he got a new job as the manager of Newcastle United, with whom he reached the FA Cup final at the end of his first year. The league performances weren’t great, though, and when Newcastle lost 2-1 to local rivals Sunderland five games into the Premier League season, the Dutchman resigned. He then worked with Feyenoord and Los Angeles Galaxy as manager, eventually ending up taking charge of the Russian side Terek Grozny, getting ‘lots of money’ from the club in the process. The FA Cup that he won with Chelsea would end up being his only major piece of silverware as a manager.