England and Wales (27 Oct - 2nd Nov 24) Day 5 - Stamford Bridge

One of the things Cameron was most keen to do on the trip away was to visit Stamford Bridge, the home stadium of his favourite Premier League team, Chelsea.

We had originally planned to visit the stadium on the Sunday when we arrived, but the stadium wasn't open for tours on Sunday, so we planned to just visit and, as a consolation prize, we booked a tour of Old Trafford instead. Then plans changed and the Carabao Cup caused a game at Stamford Bridge to be moved to Sunday. This meant we would have little hope of making it to see the stadium amongst all of the match day crowd.  Originally we had planned Thursday and Friday to both be spent at Alton Towers Resort theme park, but we changed up the plans, doing Alton Towers on Friday and taking Cameron to see Stamford Bridge on Thursday.

The drive wasn't a short one, 3.5hrs each way, but we knew it was something he really wanted to see and had missed out on all the other trips.  We agreed that we would just visit for photos and not a tour (as the tour was around $250 for all four of us, and we'd already done Old Trafford).  But it wasn't going to be worth a 7hr round trip to take some photos, so we secretly booked the tour to surprise him.

On the day, we left pretty early and after a long drive we finally made it to South London and got a park near the stadium.  Cameron asked if we could go check out the museum (which could be visited without a full tour), so I said I'd see how much it cost. We all walked in and I walked up to the counter and said "Hi, I have a booking for the 1pm stadium tour."  I heard Cameron gasp behind me, and for once he was speechless.

Through the photos you can see the mild look of shock and disbelief on his face...

Waiting for the tour

We started the tour by headed straight to the ground and standing fence side. One thing I noticed immediately about Stamford Bridge was how close the lower seats were to the field. In the other stadiums there had been a large distance between the seats and field, but at Stamford Bridge it all felt closer.

New pink light technology to grow and repair the grass

We then got to sit in the journalist seats, each with their own mini newscreen:

While we looked out over the pitch, we will given some info about the ground and club.

The ground was first opened in 1877 and served as an athletics ground for the London Athletic Club. In 1904 the ground was bought by the Mears brothers with the aim to host a football club. The ground was located in the suburb of Fulham, so the brothers offered it to Fulham FC, but Fulham turned them down, choosing to stay at Craven Cottage.

So the brothers chose to start a new team. Even though they were located in Fulham, they couldn't use the name Fulham as it was already taken, so they looked to the nearest suburbs of Kensington and Chelsea. Legend has it that they tossed a coin between the two and settled on Chelsea Football Club. (The tour guide joked that if they had gone the other way and chosen Kensington, the club would be KFC).

The name Stamford Bridge has a historical origin from the site of a famous battle against the Vikings in 1066, where the English won a victory in Yorkshire just before the Battle of Hastings. However the club is named after local landmarks, a nearby Stanford Creek in the 1700s that flowed past where the East stand now lies and down into the Thames. Where the stream crossed Fulham Road it was marked on maps as "Little Chelsea Bridge" or the Sand Ford (Sanford) and the stone bridge that crossed the stream on the King's Road was the Stone Bridge (Stanbridge). The names merged to form Stanford Bridge and then Stamford Bridge.

Our next stop was into the press room where we got to see where Chelsea gave press meetings after the game:

Our next stop was the visitor changeroom, which displayed some player shirts from famous rivals who had changed in those rooms. We were told that the change rooms were originally only about a third of the size and crowded for twenty players. They were enlarged when a sports psychologist told the team that this was causing opposition teams to come out more angry, fired up and eager to beat the home team.

We then passed across the tunnel and to the much more opulent Chelsea changing rooms:

Physio Room

We then got to walk out through the player's tunnel and sit in the reserve seats:

We then walked around the edge of the field:

We then ended up in the shop, where Cam picked up a scarf and training shirt, and then we headed out along the Shed Wall and back into the museum:

By the time we finished up, it was getting late, so we ducked into a nearby shopping centre for some lunch and then started the 3.5hr drive back to Stoke.