Driving forward: Celebrating 30 years of the Chelsea Women

2022 has been a year to remember for Chelsea Football Club. From ushering in a new ownership group and saying farewell to the one that built the club into the one it is today. To Emma Hayes celebrating 10 years with the Blues to Graham Potter taking the reins.

CFC has been through a load of ups and downs as the seasons for each team begin to heat up. Through all of this drama, this year is without question one of the most historic in the club’s history. Some think that after seeing the Chelsea Women constantly lifting silverware at the end of each season in recent years, the Blues have been at the top of the mountain from the beginning. The truth is, the club’s women’s team started at rock bottom and worked its way through numerous obstacles into the powerhouse it has become today.

30 years ago in the month of October, the Chelsea Women’s Team was born, playing its first competitive contest of the modern era, and since then, the rest is history. From the CFC Ladies’ players selling lottery tickets outside of Stamford Bridge during match days to help raise funds for the women to Sam Kerr netting stunning goals to give the Blues their third straight league title in front of a packed Kingsmeadow crowd, the team has overcome unimaginable circumstances for it to reach the position it is in today.

As Hayes celebrated her 10th season at the helm, she reminisced about her first day of work, and where it all started with her at CFCW:

"“We’re talking about 10 am on Sunday, no one on-site…‘What do you mean we don’t have an office? What do you mean there’s no full-time players or staff?’ There wasn’t a single member of staff that worked for the women’s section, let alone had an office, let alone had a desk, or a filing cabinet. The starting point was zero, and that was terrifying and exciting all at once.”"