Since its founding in 1905, Chelsea FC has gone through a series of ups and downs on its path to becoming one of Europe's most successful soccer clubs. Through this comprehensive volume, young readers will discover key players, notable wins, and how the team has tackled such problems as hooliganism. Examining major turning points like the team's purchase by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, the successful Jose Mourinho years, and beyond, this book explores Chelsea's rise from a modest London club to a major global brand.

The Official Chelsea FC Annual 2019 is your ultimate guide to the blues. Inside you can read about all our players, including the new faces who joined the squad in the summer. We also look back on our Premier League highs, along with successes at Academy level and for Chelsea Ladies. With plenty of fun and games, quizzes, puzzles and an exclusive competition and loads of fantastic pictures, you'll find out everything you need to know about the best club in the world. IMAGE OF 2018 ANNUAL FOR ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES

Chelsea FC, as someone once observed, has always done what other clubs have done, but not necessary in the same order. A stone's throw from the King's Road, draped with showbiz connections, and not even based in the borough from which it takes its name, Chelsea is an enigma. Run by the entrepreneurial Mears dynasty, Ken 'electric fence' Bates and now the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, the club has enough entertaining quirks and anecdotes to keep you entertained for ages. It is also a club whose history is filled with glorious games, unique facts, bizarre statistics, larger-than-life players and a special brand of supporter. And, as this book proves, far from being the imposters Kipling suggested, triumph and disaster make for a fantastically entertaining read.

On the final day of the 2002 / 2003 football season Chelsea Football Club recorded a famous 2-1 victory over Liverpool, thereby qualifying to play in the following seasons European Champions League competition. Resigned to losing Gianfranco Zola, who had recently been voted the club's greatest ever player, and with no money available for Chelsea's charismatic coach Claudio Ranieri to strengthen the squad, the prospects for the coming season looked to be self-limiting. That had been the general consensus of Marco, Young Dave, Ugly John, Ossie and the rest of the Chelsea Gate 17 boys as they frittered away the summer months waiting for the new European campaign to begin. Enter Roman Abramovich. The billionaire Russian oligarch purchased the club and financed a spending spree unprecedented in the history of the game. 'Glorious unpredictability,' that's what Marco called it ...that Chelsea factor, you just never knew what was going to happen next. Whatever it was, the Gate 17 boys had no intention of missing any of it ...they'd even planned to make a spiritual pilgrimage to Sardinia to watch their hero Zola. Over Land and Sea re-writes the current trend in depressingly violent football literature.

Based on the true story of soccer legend Mia Hamm, Mia and Friends follows a group of young women who made history at the 1999 Women’s World Cup! Despite being named after a famous ballerina, little Mia Hamm never cared for pirouettes. Instead, she chased the ball: baseball, basketball, and especially soccer. Since she was often the only girl on her sports teams, she had a hard time making friends. But when fifteen-year-old Mia made the U.S. women’s national soccer team, everything changed. All around her, young women tackled and dribbled, passed and kicked, scored, and screamed. They were just like her—but even more skilled. For Mia to improve, she had to play up to the levels of Michelle Akers, Briana Scurry, Brandi Chastain, and so many others. She was determined not to let her team down.

They say if you remember the Swinging '60s, you weren't there. And surely no other football club encapsulated that momentus era of change more than Chelsea. As Britain's youngest football agent, Greg Tesser lived the 1960's dream. As an eighteen-year-old publicist he helped launch the careers of the likes of Eric Clapton and Georgie Fame, before promoting the King of Stamford Bridge himself, the legendary Peter Osgood. It was all showbiz glamour down the Fulham Road in those halcyon, hedonistic years, with Hollywood stars Steve McQueen and Raquel Welch choosing to worship at the shrine of Ossie and co. Football become fashionable with all the Beautiful People - Greg and Charlie Cooke even wrote for Vogue! - QPR legend Rodney Marsh modelled for upmarket glossies, and Ossie morphed into a true '60s icon. A first FA Cup, a first European trophy, all Chelsea fans, indeed all fans of football, will enjoy this journey down memory lane when soccer swung and it was hip to kick a ball.

Follow Sam Kerr’s incredible journey from playing Aussie Rules as a kid to becoming one of the world’s greatest athletes, after the Matildas achieved their best-ever result at a World Cup. Sam Kerr is widely considered to be one of the best female footballers of all time. She is famous worldwide for her skills on the soccer pitch – but before she was Matildas captain and leading goal scorer for Chelsea, she was just an average Aussie kid who wanted to play AFL. This is her incredible football journey to the 2023 FIFA World Cup and beyond, from making the switch to soccer to becoming one of the best female strikers in the world. Sam gives us insights into what keeps her motivated, how she handles the pressures of life as a professional athlete and what she believes is really important in life. Inside you will find: Sam’s most memorable World Cup moments facts about the 2023 FIFA World Cup everything you want to know about the Matildas amazing facts about Sam – her early days, family life, teams, playing for Chelsea and the Matildas.