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First Football Rivalries: Chelsea v Manchester United |
Chelsea versus Manchester United is one of the classic North v South fixtures in the English football calendar.
Chelsea first faced Manchester United on Christmas Day, 1905 – some nine months after the club had been founded by Edwardian businessman, Henry Augustus ‘Gus’ Mears. The match was played at Bank Street in Clayton, Manchester and attracted a crowd of 35,000 who witnessed a 0.0 draw in this Football League Second Division clash.
Mears had contracted a famous architect of the time, Archibald Leitch, to build a huge new stadium - Stamford Bridge – on the Fulham Road, where the new team would play. The first football match to be played there had been a friendly against Liverpool on 4th September 1905 which Chelsea had won 4.0. That match also saw the appearance of the first 4-page matchday programme in London and reflected the growing interest in football in the South of England, away from its original heartlands in the North and the Midlands.
Manchester United first headed south to play The Pensioners at Stamford Bridge on 13th April 1906 – this time it was Good Friday but the result was still a draw, in front of a huge holiday crowd of 67,000. Charles Sagar put United ahead early in the second half before Tommy McDermott equalised for Chelsea ten minutes before the end.
Chelsea had to travel to Bank Street again in order to beat Man United for the first time – in League Division One now – on 7th November 1908. The match ended 1.0 to Chelsea with George Hilsdon scoring their winning goal from a penalty. At Stamford Bridge, though, the wait for a win lasted much longer – nearly 12 years in fact; and a World War separated these first two victories.
George Hilsdon began his career at West Ham United, joining Chelsea in 1906. He was the first player to score 100 goals for the club and was known in West London by his nickname of "Gatling Gun." This label was given to him as he was renowned for hitting unstoppable shots which were so hard that it seemed as though they might have been fired from a gun! After scoring a total of 108 goals for Chelsea he returned to play for West Ham before being conscripted for service in that first World War where he was seriously injured on the Western Front in a mustard gas attack. Only four people attended his funeral when he died, in Leicester, in 1941 and he lay in an unmarked grave for some 74 years until Chelsea fans clubbed together to fund a headstone for this hitherto forgotten hero.
Manchester United first won at Chelsea on 28th September 1907 – a 4.1 win in the First Division. Hilsdon again got Chelsea’s goal and Billy Meredith scored two for The Reds. It wasn’t until 17th January 1920 that Chelsea finally secured their first home win over Man United – 1.0 in Division One – in front of a crowd of 40,000. Centre-forward John Cock scored the only goal of the game. This will have been a cause of great celebration - lightening the post-war gloom in that part of the capital - ironically on the same day that Prohibition came into effect in the USA.
Chelsea hit six goals past the men from Old Trafford on 6th September 1930. Alexander Cheyne scored a hat-trick that day and Hughie Gallacher got two more in a 6.2 win in a top tier clash watched by 48,648 at The Bridge.
Alexander ‘Alec’ Cheyne had only signed for Chelsea that year and for a then club record fee of £6000. One year earlier, while playing for his native Scotland against England, Cheyne scored direct from a corner with just a minute of the match remaining. A 'roar of encouragement' came up from the 110,000 fans - most of them supporting Scotland who were down to ten men at the time - and continued even after the final whistle. This was the first time such a noise had been noted and it became known as the 'Hampden Roar,' with the match being forever labelled the 'Cheyne International.'
One of the most dramatic league encounters – and highest aggregate scores (11) – between these clubs at Stamford Bridge took place on 16th October 1954 in front of a crowd of 55,966. Chelsea scored five goals, with Seamus O’Connell marking his Chelsea debut with a hat-trick (he and George Hilsdon are the only two Chelsea players to have scored hat-tricks on their debuts for the club). However, Manchester United fought back with six goals of their own, Dennis Viollet also scoring a hat-trick and Tommy Taylor with two. Sadly, Taylor would die in the Munich Air Crash less than four years later.
United won 3.2 at Stamford Bridge in a classic match on 18th August 1971 with some famous names on the scoresheet: Tommy Baldwin and Peter Osgood for Chelsea; Willie Morgan, Bobby Charlton and Brian Kidd for United. Another massive domestic crowd of 54,763 turned out to see these two top teams who had also done so well in Europe in recent seasons – Chelsea in the UEFA European Cup Winners' Cup that year, and Manchester United as the first English team to lift the UEFA European Cup three years earlier.
Much of the research for this article was done for our book – First Football Histories: The Chelsea FC Story
Chelsea first faced Manchester United on Christmas Day, 1905 – some nine months after the club had been founded by Edwardian businessman, Henry Augustus ‘Gus’ Mears. The match was played at Bank Street in Clayton, Manchester and attracted a crowd of 35,000 who witnessed a 0.0 draw in this Football League Second Division clash.
Mears had contracted a famous architect of the time, Archibald Leitch, to build a huge new stadium - Stamford Bridge – on the Fulham Road, where the new team would play. The first football match to be played there had been a friendly against Liverpool on 4th September 1905 which Chelsea had won 4.0. That match also saw the appearance of the first 4-page matchday programme in London and reflected the growing interest in football in the South of England, away from its original heartlands in the North and the Midlands.
Manchester United first headed south to play The Pensioners at Stamford Bridge on 13th April 1906 – this time it was Good Friday but the result was still a draw, in front of a huge holiday crowd of 67,000. Charles Sagar put United ahead early in the second half before Tommy McDermott equalised for Chelsea ten minutes before the end.
Chelsea had to travel to Bank Street again in order to beat Man United for the first time – in League Division One now – on 7th November 1908. The match ended 1.0 to Chelsea with George Hilsdon scoring their winning goal from a penalty. At Stamford Bridge, though, the wait for a win lasted much longer – nearly 12 years in fact; and a World War separated these first two victories.
George Hilsdon began his career at West Ham United, joining Chelsea in 1906. He was the first player to score 100 goals for the club and was known in West London by his nickname of "Gatling Gun." This label was given to him as he was renowned for hitting unstoppable shots which were so hard that it seemed as though they might have been fired from a gun! After scoring a total of 108 goals for Chelsea he returned to play for West Ham before being conscripted for service in that first World War where he was seriously injured on the Western Front in a mustard gas attack. Only four people attended his funeral when he died, in Leicester, in 1941 and he lay in an unmarked grave for some 74 years until Chelsea fans clubbed together to fund a headstone for this hitherto forgotten hero.
Manchester United first won at Chelsea on 28th September 1907 – a 4.1 win in the First Division. Hilsdon again got Chelsea’s goal and Billy Meredith scored two for The Reds. It wasn’t until 17th January 1920 that Chelsea finally secured their first home win over Man United – 1.0 in Division One – in front of a crowd of 40,000. Centre-forward John Cock scored the only goal of the game. This will have been a cause of great celebration - lightening the post-war gloom in that part of the capital - ironically on the same day that Prohibition came into effect in the USA.
Chelsea hit six goals past the men from Old Trafford on 6th September 1930. Alexander Cheyne scored a hat-trick that day and Hughie Gallacher got two more in a 6.2 win in a top tier clash watched by 48,648 at The Bridge.
Alexander ‘Alec’ Cheyne had only signed for Chelsea that year and for a then club record fee of £6000. One year earlier, while playing for his native Scotland against England, Cheyne scored direct from a corner with just a minute of the match remaining. A 'roar of encouragement' came up from the 110,000 fans - most of them supporting Scotland who were down to ten men at the time - and continued even after the final whistle. This was the first time such a noise had been noted and it became known as the 'Hampden Roar,' with the match being forever labelled the 'Cheyne International.'
One of the most dramatic league encounters – and highest aggregate scores (11) – between these clubs at Stamford Bridge took place on 16th October 1954 in front of a crowd of 55,966. Chelsea scored five goals, with Seamus O’Connell marking his Chelsea debut with a hat-trick (he and George Hilsdon are the only two Chelsea players to have scored hat-tricks on their debuts for the club). However, Manchester United fought back with six goals of their own, Dennis Viollet also scoring a hat-trick and Tommy Taylor with two. Sadly, Taylor would die in the Munich Air Crash less than four years later.
United won 3.2 at Stamford Bridge in a classic match on 18th August 1971 with some famous names on the scoresheet: Tommy Baldwin and Peter Osgood for Chelsea; Willie Morgan, Bobby Charlton and Brian Kidd for United. Another massive domestic crowd of 54,763 turned out to see these two top teams who had also done so well in Europe in recent seasons – Chelsea in the UEFA European Cup Winners' Cup that year, and Manchester United as the first English team to lift the UEFA European Cup three years earlier.
Much of the research for this article was done for our book – First Football Histories: The Chelsea FC Story
