Chelsea Football Club Women, formerly known as Chelsea Ladies Football Club, are an English women's football club based in Kingston upon Thames, London. Founded in 1992, they compete in the Women's Super League, the top flight of women's football in England, and plays their home games at the Kingsmeadow with some select games at Stamford Bridge. Since 2004, the club has been affiliated with Chelsea F.C., the men's team in the Premier League. Chelsea Women were a founding member of the Super League in 2010. From 2005 to 2010, the side competed in the Premier League National Division, the top tier of women's football in England at the time.
One of the most successful clubs in English women's football, Chelsea have won a record six Women's Super League championships, as well as the FA WSL Spring Series in 2017, and have the second-highest number of outright league championships after Arsenal. They have also won five Women's FA Cup titles, two FA Women's League Cup titles, and were Women's FA Community Shield winners in 2020. They reached their first UEFA Women's Champions League final in 2021, where they finished as runners-up.
History
Establishment
Chelsea Ladies Football Club was formed in 1992 after supporters of Chelsea F.C. expressed desire for a women's side. Tony Farmer, a longtime Chelsea supporter who became interested in women's football when his girlfriend Val Lightfoot joined Crystal Palace, wrote a letter to Chelsea F.C. to propose adding a women's side.
Upon approval, Farmer became the club's first manager, lobbied for it to be promoted in men's match programmes, and began recruiting youth players to the club, including Casey Stoney and Fara Williams as 12-year-olds in 1994 and 1996, respectively. The side's first home pitch was Hurlingham Park in Fulham.
Farmer managed the club from the third division of the Greater London Women's Football League to the Premier League Southern Division before resigning in 1997. In June 2004, Chelsea Ladies voted to be taken over and funded by Chelsea's Football in the Community department, and in 2004–05 Chelsea won promotion to the Premier League National Division. The club has participated at the top level ever since.
FA Premier League National Division, 2005–2010
After starting 2005–06 with one point from six games, manager George Michealas was fired in September after four years in charge. They finished bottom of the league that season under Shaun Gore, but won a promotion/relegation play-off against Northern Division runners-up Liverpool 4–1 on aggregate to stay in the Premier League National Division. During the season the club had been linked with a transfer bid for North American star players Tiffeny Milbrett and Christine Sinclair.
After an eighth-place finish in 2006–07, Gore drafted in England players Siobhan Chamberlain, Casey Stoney and Eniola Aluko that summer. American World Cup winner Lorrie Fair, regarded as one of the best midfielders in the women's game, joined in January as Chelsea finished 2007–08 in fifth position.
Chelsea Ladies introduced a new manager for the 2008–09 season, former Arsenal Ladies reserve team coach Steve Jones. On 2 July 2008 Chelsea surprisingly signed Lianne Sanderson and Anita Asante from Arsenal Ladies, in addition to veteran Mary Phillip. Then Arsenal Ladies manager Vic Akers criticised his former players as disrespectful, while pursuing players from other clubs to bolster his own squad.
Chelsea Ladies finished the 2008–09 season third behind Arsenal and Everton. Mary Phillip retired a month into the new season, Aluko and Asante left for the new WPS in March 2009, while Fair missed the whole campaign with a cruciate ligament injury sustained in May 2008. Jones departed as manager in January 2009, leaving Stoney to act as player/manager.
At Stoney's recommendation, Matt Beard became manager for 2009–10. Cuts to the Ladies club's funding were offset by financial assistance from John Terry and other Chelsea F.C. players. A further blow arrived when Sanderson left for the 2010 WPS season.
Women's Super League (WSL), 2011–present
The club bid successfully to be one of eight founding teams in the FA Women's Super League in March 2011. On 13 April 2011, the first-ever WSL fixture was played — at Imperial Fields, Chelsea's home ground — between them and Arsenal, which they lost 1–0. Beard led the club to the Women's FA Cup final for the first time in 2012, but Chelsea were eventually beaten by Birmingham City on a penalty shootout after twice taking the lead in a 2–2 draw. In July 2012, Matt Beard resigned as manager after three years in the post.