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Charles Lyell

Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, (14 November 1797 – 22 February 1875) was a Scottish geologist who demonstrated the power of known natural causes in explaining the earth's history. He is best known today for his association with Charles Darwin and as the author of Principles of Geology (1830–33), which presented to a wide public audience the idea that the earth was shaped by the same natural processes still in operation today, operating at similar intensities. The philosopher William Whewell dubbed this gradualistic view "uniformitarianism" and contrasted it with catastrophism, which had been championed by Georges Cuvier and was better accepted in Europe. The combination of evidence and eloquence in Principles convinced a wide range of readers of the significance of "deep time" for understanding the earth and environment.

Lyell's scientific contributions included a pioneering explanation of climate change, in which shifting boundaries between oceans and continents could be used to explain long-term variations in temperature and rainfall. Lyell also gave influential explanations of earthquakes and developed the theory of gradual "backed up-building" of volcanoes. In stratigraphy his division of the Tertiary period into the Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene was highly influential. He incorrectly conjectured that icebergs were the impetus behind the transport of glacial erratics, and that silty loess deposits might have settled out of flood waters. His creation of a separate period for human history, entitled the 'Recent', is widely cited as providing the foundations for the modern discussion of the Anthropocene.

Building on the innovative work of James Hutton and his follower John Playfair, Lyell favoured an indefinitely long age for the earth, despite evidence suggesting an old but finite age. He was a close friend of Charles Darwin, and contributed significantly to Darwin's thinking on the processes involved in evolution. As Darwin wrote in On the Origin of Species, "He who can read Sir Charles Lyell's grand work on the Principles of Geology, which the future historian will recognise as having produced a revolution in natural science, yet does not admit how incomprehensibly vast have been the past periods of time, may at once close this volume." Lyell helped to arrange the simultaneous publication in 1858 of papers by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace on natural selection, despite his personal religious qualms about the theory. He later published evidence from geology of the time man had existed on the earth.

Biography
Lyell was born into a wealthy family, on 14 November 1797, at the family's estate house, Kinnordy House, near Kirriemuir in Forfarshire. He was the eldest of ten children. Lyell's father, also named Charles Lyell, was noted as a translator and scholar of Dante. An accomplished botanist, it was he who first exposed his son to the study of nature. Lyell's grandfather, also Charles Lyell, had made the family fortune supplying the Royal Navy at Montrose, enabling him to buy Kinnordy House.

The family seat is located in Strathmore, near the Highland Boundary Fault. Round the house, in the strath, is good farmland, but within a short distance to the north-west, on the other side of the fault, are the Grampian Mountains in the Highlands. His family's second country home was in a completely different geological and ecological area: he spent much of his childhood at Bartley Lodge in the New Forest, in Hampshire in southern England.

Lyell entered Exeter College, Oxford, in 1816, and attended William Buckland's geological lectures. He graduated with a BA Hons. second class degree in classics, in December 1819, and gained his M.A. 1821. After graduation he took up law as a profession, entering Lincoln's Inn in 1820. He completed a circuit through rural England, where he could observe geological phenomena. In 1821 he attended Robert Jameson's lectures in Edinburgh, and visited Gideon Mantell at Lewes, in Sussex. In 1823 he was elected joint secretary of the Geological Society. As his eyesight began to deteriorate, he turned to geology as a full-time profession. His first paper, "On a recent formation of freshwater limestone in Forfarshire", was presented in 1826. By 1827, he had abandoned law and embarked on a geological career that would result in fame and the general acceptance of uniformitarianism, a working out of the ideas proposed by James Hutton a few decades earlier.

In 1832, Lyell married Mary Horner in Bonn, daughter of Leonard Horner (1785–1864), also associated with the Geological Society of London. The new couple spent their honeymoon in Switzerland and Italy on a geological tour of the area.

During the 1840s, Lyell travelled to the United States and Canada, and wrote two popular travel-and-geology books: Travels in North America (1845) and A Second Visit to the United States (1849). In 1866, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. After the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, Lyell was one of the first to donate books to help found the Chicago Public Library.

In 1841, Lyell was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society.

Lyell's wife died in 1873, and two years later (in 1875) Lyell himself died as he was revising the twelfth edition of Principles. He is buried in Westminster Abbey where there is a bust to him by William Theed in the north aisle.

Lyell was knighted (Kt) in 1848, and later, in 1864, made a baronet (Bt), which is an hereditary honour. He was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1858 and the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society in 1866. Mount Lyell, the highest peak in Yosemite National Park, is named after him; the crater Lyell on the Moon and a crater on Mars were named in his honour; Mount Lyell in western Tasmania, Australia, located in a profitable mining area, bears Lyell's name; and the Lyell Range in north-west Western Australia is named after him as well. In Southwest Nelson in the South Island of New Zealand, the Lyell Range, Lyell River and the gold mining town of Lyell (now only a camping site) were all named after Lyell. Lyall Bay in Wellington, New Zealand was possibly named after Lyell. The jawless fish Cephalaspis lyelli, from the Old Red Sandstone of southern Scotland, was named by Louis Agassiz in honour of Lyell.

Sir Charles Lyell was buried at Westminster Abbey on 27 February 1875. The pallbearers included T. H. Huxley, the Rev. W. S. Symonds and Mr John Carrick Moore.

Career and major writings
Lyell had private means, and earned further income as an author. He came from a prosperous family, worked briefly as a lawyer in the 1820s, and held the post of Professor of Geology at King's College London in the 1830s. From 1830 onward his books provided both income and fame. Each of his three major books was a work continually in progress. All three went through multiple editions during his lifetime, although many of his friends (such as Darwin) thought the first edition of the Principles was the best written. Lyell used each edition to incorporate additional material, rearrange existing material, and revisit old conclusions in light of new evidence. Throughout his life, Lyell kept a remarkable series of nearly three hundred manuscript notebooks and diaries. These span Lyell’s long scientific career (1825-1874), and offer an unrivalled insight into personal influences, field observations, thoughts and relationships. They were acquired in 2019 by the University of Edinburgh's Heritage Collections, thanks to a fundraising campaign, with many generous individual and institutional donors from the UK and overseas. Highlights include his travels throughout Europe and the United States of America, the drafts of his correspondence with the likes of Charles Darwin, his geological and landscape sketches and his constant gathering of evidence and refinement of his theories.

Principles of Geology, Lyell's first book, was also his most famous, most influential, and most important. First published in three volumes in 1830–33, it established Lyell's credentials as an important geological theorist and propounded the doctrine of uniformitarianism. It was a work of synthesis, backed by his own personal observations on his travels.

The central argument in Principles was that the present is the key to the past – a concept of the Scottish Enlightenment which David Hume had stated as "all inferences from experience suppose ... that the future will resemble the past", and James Hutton had described when he wrote in 1788 that "from what has actually been, we have data for concluding with regard to that which is to happen thereafter." Geological remains from the distant past can, and should, be explained by reference to geological processes now in operation and thus directly observable. Lyell's interpretation of geological change as the steady accumulation of minute changes over enormously long spans of time was a powerful influence on the young Charles Darwin. Lyell asked Robert FitzRoy, captain of HMS Beagle, to search for erratic boulders on the survey voyage of the Beagle, and just before it set out FitzRoy gave Darwin Volume 1 of the first edition of Lyell's Principles. When the Beagle made its first stop ashore at St Jago in the Cape Verde islands, Darwin found rock formations which seen "through Lyell's eyes" gave him a revolutionary insight into the geological history of the island, an insight he applied throughout his travels.

While in South America Darwin received Volume 2 which considered the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in some detail. Lyell rejected Lamarck's idea of organic evolution, proposing instead "Centres of Creation" to explain diversity and territory of species. However, as discussed below, many of his letters show he was fairly open to the idea of evolution. In geology Darwin was very much Lyell's disciple, and brought back observations and his own original theorising, including ideas about the formation of atolls, which supported Lyell's uniformitarianism. On the return of the Beagle (October 1836) Lyell invited Darwin to dinner and from then on they were close friends.

Although Darwin discussed evolutionary ideas with him from 1842, Lyell continued to reject evolution in each of the first nine editions of the Principles. He encouraged Darwin to publish, and following the 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species, Lyell finally offered a tepid endorsement of evolution in the tenth edition of Principles.

Elements of Geology began as the fourth volume of the third edition of Principles: Lyell intended the book to act as a suitable field guide for students of geology. The systematic, factual description of geological formations of different ages contained in Principles grew so unwieldy, however, that Lyell split it off as the Elements in 1838. The book went through six editions, eventually growing to two volumes and ceasing to be the inexpensive, portable handbook that Lyell had originally envisioned. Late in his career, therefore, Lyell produced a condensed version titled Student's Elements of Geology that fulfilled the original purpose.

Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man brought together Lyell's views on three key themes from the geology of the Quaternary Period of earth history: glaciers, evolution, and the age of the human race. First published in 1863, it went through three editions that year, with a fourth and final edition appearing in 1873. The book was widely regarded as a disappointment because of Lyell's equivocal treatment of evolution. Lyell, a highly religious man with a strong belief in the special status of human reason, had great difficulty reconciling his beliefs with natural selection.

Scientific contributions
Lyell's geological interests ranged from volcanoes and geological dynamics through stratigraphy, palaeontology, and glaciology to topics that would now be classified as prehistoric archaeology and paleoanthropology. He is best known, however, for his role in elaborating the doctrine of uniformitarianism. He played a critical role in advancing the study of loess.

Uniformitarianism
From 1830 to 1833 his multi-volume Principles of Geology was published. The work's subtitle was "An attempt to explain the former changes of the earth's surface by reference to causes now in operation", and this explains Lyell's impact on science. He drew his explanations from field studies conducted directly before he went to work on the founding geology text. He was, along with the earlier John Playfair, the major advocate of James Hutton's idea of uniformitarianism, that the earth was shaped entirely by slow-moving forces still in operation today, acting over a very long period of time. This was in contrast to catastrophism, an idea of abrupt geological changes, which had been adapted in England to explain landscape features—such as rivers much smaller than their associated valleys—that seemed impossible to explain other than through violent action. Criticizing the reliance of his contemporaries on what he argued were ad hoc explanations, Lyell wrote,

"Never was there a doctrine more calculated to foster indolence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity, than this assumption of the discordance between the former and the existing causes of change... The student was taught to despond from the first. Geology, it was affirmed, could never arise to the rank of an exact science... [With catastrophism] we see the ancient spirit of speculation revived, and a desire manifestly shown to cut, rather than patiently untie, the Gordian Knot. -Sir Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, 1854 edition, p. 196; quoted by Stephen Jay Gould."

Lyell saw himself as "the spiritual saviour of geology, freeing the science from the old dispensation of Moses." The two terms, uniformitarianism and catastrophism, were both coined by William Whewell; in 1866 R. Grove suggested the simpler term continuity for Lyell's view, but the old terms persisted. In various revised editions (12 in all, through 1872), Principles of Geology was the most influential geological work in the middle of the 19th century, and did much to put geology on a modern footing.

Geological surveys
Lyell noted the "economic advantages" that geological surveys could provide, citing their felicity in mineral-rich countries and provinces. Modern surveys, like the British Geological Survey (founded in 1835), and the US Geological Survey (founded in 1879), map and exhibit the natural resources within their countries. Over time, these surveys have been used extensively by modern extractive industries, such as nuclear, coal and oil.

Volcanoes and geological dynamics
Before the work of Lyell, phenomena such as earthquakes were understood by the destruction that they brought. One of the contributions that Lyell made in Principles was to explain the cause of earthquakes. Lyell, in contrast focused on recent earthquakes (150 yrs), evidenced by surface irregularities such as faults, fissures, stratigraphic displacements and depressions.

Lyell's work on volcanoes focused largely on Vesuvius and Etna, both of which he had earlier studied. His conclusions supported gradual building of volcanoes, so-called "backed up-building", as opposed to the upheaval argument supported by other geologists.

Stratigraphy and human history
Lyell was a key figure in establishing the classification of more recent geological deposits, long known as the Tertiary period. From May 1828, until February 1829, he travelled with Roderick Impey Murchison (1792–1871) to the south of France (Auvergne volcanic district) and to Italy. In these areas he concluded that the recent strata (rock layers) could be categorised according to the number and proportion of marine shells encased within. Based on this the third volume of his Principles of Geology, published in 1833, proposed dividing the Tertiary period into four parts, which he named the Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene, and Recent. In 1839, Lyell termed the Pleistocene epoch, distinguishing a more recent fossil layer from the Pliocene. The Recent epoch – renamed the Holocene by French paleontologist Paul Gervais in 1867 –  included all deposits from the era subject to human observation. In recent years Lyell's subdivisions have been widely discussed in relation to debates about the Anthropocene.

Glaciers
In Principles of Geology (first edition, vol. 3, ch. 2, 1833) Lyell proposed that icebergs could be the means of transport for erratics. During periods of global warming, ice breaks off the poles and floats across submerged continents, carrying debris with it, he conjectured. When the iceberg melts, it rains down sediments upon the land. Because this theory could account for the presence of diluvium, the word drift became the preferred term for the loose, unsorted material, today called till. Furthermore, Lyell believed that the accumulation of fine angular particles covering much of the world (today called loess) was a deposit settled from mountain flood water. Today some of Lyell's mechanisms for geological processes have been disproven, though many have stood the test of time. His observational methods and general analytical framework remain in use today as foundational principles in geology.

Evolution
Lyell initially accepted the conventional view of other men of science, that the fossil record indicated a directional geohistory in which species went extinct. Around 1826, when he was on circuit, he read Lamarck's Zoological Philosophy and on 2 March 1827 wrote to Mantell, expressing admiration, but cautioning that he read it "rather as I hear an advocate on the wrong side, to know what can be made of the case in good hands".:
 * I devoured Lamarck... his theories delighted me... I am glad that he has been courageous enough and logical enough to admit that his argument, if pushed as far as it must go, if worth anything, would prove that men may have come from the Ourang-Outang. But after all, what changes species may really undergo!... That the earth is quite as old as he supposes, has long been my creed...

He struggled with the implications for human dignity, and later in 1827 wrote private notes on Lamarck's ideas. Lyell reconciled transmutation of species with natural theology by suggesting that it would be as much a "remarkable manifestation of creative Power" as creating each species separately. He countered Lamarck's views by rejecting continued cooling of the earth in favour of "a fluctuating cycle", a long-term steady-state geohistory as proposed by James Hutton. The fragmentary fossil record already showed "a high class of fishes, close to reptiles" in the Carboniferous period which he called "the first Zoological era", and quadrupeds could also have existed then. In November 1827, after William Broderip found a Middle Jurassic fossil of the early mammal Didelphis, Lyell told his father that "There was everything but man even as far back as the Oolite." Lyell inaccurately portrayed Lamarckism as a response to the fossil record, and said it was falsified by a lack of progress. He said in the second volume of Principles that the occurrence of this one fossil of the higher mammalia "in these ancient strata, is as fatal to the theory of successive development, as if several hundreds had been discovered."

In the first edition of Principles, the first volume briefly set out Lyell's concept of a steady state with no real progression of fossils. The sole exception was the advent of humanity, with no great physical distinction from animals, but with absolutely unique intellectual and moral qualities. The second volume dismissed Lamarck's claims of animal forms arising from habits, continuous spontaneous generation of new life, and man having evolved from lower forms. Lyell explicitly rejected Lamarck's concept of transmutation of species, drawing on Cuvier's arguments, and concluded that species had been created with stable attributes. He discussed the geographical distribution of plants and animals, and proposed that every species of plant or animal was descended from a pair or individual, originated in response to differing external conditions. Species would regularly go extinct, in a "struggle for existence" between hybrids, or a "war one with another" due to population pressure. He was vague about how replacement species formed, portraying this as an infrequent occurrence which could rarely be observed.

The leading man of science Sir John Herschel wrote from Cape Town on 20 February 1836, thanking Lyell for sending a copy of Principles and praising the book as opening a way for bold speculation on "that mystery of mysteries, the replacement of extinct species by others" – by analogy with other intermediate causes, "the origination of fresh species, could it ever come under our cognizance, would be found to be a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process". Lyell replied: "In regard to the origination of new species, I am very glad to find that you think it probable that it may be carried on through the intervention of intermediate causes. I left this rather to be inferred, not thinking it worth while to offend a certain class of persons by embodying in words what would only be a speculation." Whewell subsequently questioned this topic, and in March 1837 Lyell told him:
 * Alfred Russel Wallace 1862 - Project Gutenberg eText 15997.png in 1862.]]If I had stated... the possibility of the introduction or origination of fresh species being a natural, in contradistinction to a miraculous process, I should have raised a host of prejudices against me, which are unfortunately opposed at every step to any philosopher who attempts to address the public on these mysterious subjects...

As a result of his letters and, no doubt, personal conversations, Huxley and Ernst Haeckel were convinced that, at the time he wrote Principles, he believed new species had arisen by natural methods. Adam Sedgwick wrote worried letters to him about this.

By the time Darwin returned from the Beagle survey expedition in 1836, he had begun to doubt Lyell's ideas about the permanence of species. He continued to be a close personal friend, and Lyell was one of the first scientists to support On the Origin of Species, though he did not subscribe to all its contents. Lyell was also a friend of Darwin's closest colleagues, Joseph Dalton Hooker and Huxley, but unlike them he struggled to square his religious beliefs with evolution. This inner struggle has been much commented on. He had particular difficulty in believing in natural selection as the main motive force in evolution.

Lyell and Hooker were instrumental in arranging the peaceful co-publication of the theory of natural selection by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1858: each had arrived at the theory independently. Lyell's views on gradual change and the power of a long time scale were important because Darwin thought that populations of an organism changed very slowly.

Although Lyell rejected evolution at the time of writing the Principles, after the Darwin–Wallace papers and the Origin Lyell wrote in one of his notebooks on 3 May 1860:
 * Mr. Darwin has written a work which will constitute an era in geology & natural history to show that... the descendants of common parents may become in the course of ages so unlike each other as to be entitled to rank as a distinct species, from each other or from some of their progenitors...

Lyell's acceptance of natural selection, Darwin's proposed mechanism for evolution, was equivocal, and came in the tenth edition of Principles. The Antiquity of Man (published in early February 1863, just before Huxley's Man's place in nature) drew these comments from Darwin to Huxley: "I am fearfully disappointed at Lyell's excessive caution" and "The book is a mere 'digest'". Quite strong remarks: no doubt Darwin resented Lyell's repeated suggestion that he owed a lot to Lamarck, whom he (Darwin) had always specifically rejected. Darwin's daughter Henrietta (Etty) wrote to her father: "Is it fair that Lyell always calls your theory a modification of Lamarck's?"

In other respects Antiquity was a success. It sold well, and it "shattered the tacit agreement that mankind should be the sole preserve of theologians and historians". But when Lyell wrote that it remained a profound mystery how the huge gulf between man and beast could be bridged, Darwin wrote "Oh!" in the margin of his copy.

Legacy
Places named after Lyell:

 * Lyell, New Zealand
 * Lyell Butte, in the Grand CanyonMount Lyell Group.jpg
 * Lyell Canyon in Yosemite National Park
 * Lyell Fork, one of two large forks of the Tuolumne River
 * Lyell Land (Greenland)
 * Lyell Glacier
 * Lyell Glacier, South Georgia
 * Mount Lyell (California)
 * Mount Lyell (Canada)
 * Mount Lyell (Tasmania)
 * Lyell Avenue (Rochester, NY)

Principles of Geology

 * Principles of Geology 1st edition, 1st vol. Jan. 1830 (John Murray, London).
 * Principles of Geology 1st edition, 2nd vol. Jan. 1832
 * Principles of Geology 1st edition, 3rd vol. May 1833
 * Principles of Geology 2nd edition, 1st vol. 1832
 * Principles of Geology 2nd edition, 2nd vol. Jan. 1833
 * Principles of Geology 3rd edition, 4 vols. May 1834
 * Principles of Geology 4th edition, 4 vols. June 1835
 * Principles of Geology 5th edition, 4 vols. March 1837
 * Principles of Geology 6th edition, 3 vols. June 1840
 * Principles of Geology 7th edition, 1 vol. Feb. 1847
 * Principles of Geology 8th edition, 1 vol. May 1850
 * Principles of Geology 9th edition, 1 vol. June 1853
 * Principles of Geology 10th edition, 1866–68
 * Principles of Geology 11th edition, 2 vols. 1872
 * Principles of Geology 12th edition, 2 vols. 1875 (published posthumously)

Elements of Geology

 * Elements of Geology 1 vol. 1st edition, July 1838 (John Murray, London)
 * Elements of Geology 2 vols. 2nd edition, July 1841
 * Elements of Geology (Manual of Elementary Geology) 1 vol. 3rd edition, Jan. 1851
 * Elements of Geology (Manual of Elementary Geology) 1 vol. 4th edition, Jan. 1852
 * Elements of Geology (Manual of Elementary Geology) 1 vol. 5th edition, 1855
 * Elements of Geology 6th edition, 1865
 * Elements of Geology, The Student's Series, 1871

Antiquity of Man

 * Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man 1 vol. 1st edition, Feb. 1863 (John Murray, London)
 * Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man 1 vol. 2nd edition, April 1863
 * Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man 1 vol. 3rd edition, Nov. 1863
 * Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man 1 vol. 4th edition, May 1873

title: Charles Lyell


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Chelsea F.C.

Chelsea Football Club is a professional football club based in Fulham, West London, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1905, the team play their home games at Stamford Bridge. It won its first major honour, the League championship, in 1955. The club won the FA Cup for the first time in 1970, their first European honour, the Cup Winners' Cup, in 1971, and became the third English club to win the Club World Cup in 2022.

Chelsea is one of five clubs and the first English club to have won all three pre-1999 main European club competitions, the "European Treble" of European Cup/UEFA Champions League, European/UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, and UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League. They are the only club to have won all three major European competitions twice. They are the only London club to have won the Champions League and the Club World Cup. Domestically, the club has won six league titles, eight FA Cups, five League Cups, and four FA Community Shields. Internationally, they have won the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Europa League, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and the UEFA Super Cup twice each, and the FIFA Club World Cup once since their inception. In terms of overall trophies won, Chelsea is the fifth-most successful club in English football.

The club has rivalries with neighbouring teams Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, and a historic rivalry with Leeds United. In terms of club value, Chelsea is the ninth-most-valuable football club in the world, worth $3.13 billion, and is the ninth-highest-earning football club in the world.

Founding and early years (1905–1952)
In 1904, Gus Mears acquired the Stamford Bridge athletics stadium in Fulham with the aim of turning it into a football ground. An offer to lease it to nearby Fulham F.C. was turned down, so Mears opted to found his own club to use the stadium. As there was already a team named Fulham in the borough, the name of the adjacent borough of Chelsea was chosen for the new club; names like Kensington FC, Stamford Bridge FC and London FC were considered. Chelsea F.C. was founded on 10 March 1905 at The Rising Sun pub (now The Butcher's Hook), opposite the present-day main entrance to the ground on Fulham Road, and were elected to the Football League shortly afterwards.

Chelsea won promotion to the First Division in their second season, and yo-yoed between the First and Second Divisions in its early years. The team reached the 1915 FA Cup final, where they lost to Sheffield United at Old Trafford, and finished third in the First Division in 1920, the club's best league campaign to that point. Chelsea had a reputation for signing star players and attracted large crowds. The club had the highest average attendance in English football in ten separate seasons including 1907–08, 1909–10, 1911–12, 1912–13, 1913–14 and 1919–20. They were FA Cup semi-finalists in 1920 and 1932 and remained in the First Division throughout the 1930s, but success eluded the club in the inter-war years.

Modernisation and the first league championship (1952–1983)
Former Arsenal and England centre-forward Ted Drake was appointed manager in 1952 and proceeded to modernise the club. He removed the club's Chelsea pensioner crest, improved the youth set-up and training regime, rebuilt the side with shrewd signings from the lower divisions and amateur leagues, and led Chelsea to their first major trophy success – the League championship – in 1954–55. The following season saw UEFA create the European Champions' Cup, but after objections from The Football League, Chelsea were persuaded to withdraw from the competition before it started. Chelsea failed to build on this success, and spent the remainder of the 1950s in mid-table. Drake was dismissed in 1961 and replaced by player-coach Tommy Docherty.

Docherty built a new team around the group of talented young players emerging from the club's youth set-up, and Chelsea challenged for honours throughout the 1960s, enduring several near-misses. They were on course for a treble of League, FA Cup and League Cup going into the final stages of the 1964–65 season, winning the League Cup but faltering late on in the other two. In three seasons the side were beaten in three major semi-finals and were FA Cup runners-up. Under Docherty's successor, Dave Sexton, Chelsea won the FA Cup in 1970, beating Leeds United 2–1 in a final replay. The following year, Chelsea took their first European honour, a UEFA Cup Winners' Cup triumph, with another replayed win, this time over Real Madrid in Athens.

Redevelopment and financial crisis (1983–2003)
The late 1970s through to the '80s was a turbulent period for Chelsea. An ambitious redevelopment of Stamford Bridge threatened the financial stability of the club, star players were sold and the team were relegated. Further problems were caused by a notorious hooligan element among the support, which was to plague the club throughout the decade. In 1982, at the nadir of their fortunes, Chelsea were acquired by Ken Bates from Mears' great-nephew Brian Mears, for the nominal sum of £1. Bates bought a controlling stake in the club and floated Chelsea on the AIM stock exchange in March 1996 although by now the Stamford Bridge freehold had been sold to property developers, meaning the club faced losing their home. On the pitch, the team had fared little better, coming close to relegation to the Third Division for the first time, but in 1983 manager John Neal put together an impressive new team for minimal outlay. Chelsea won the Second Division title in 1983–84 and established themselves in the top division with two top-six finishes, before being relegated again in 1988. The club bounced back immediately by winning the Second Division championship in 1988–89.

After a long-running legal battle, Bates reunited the stadium freehold with the club in 1992 by doing a deal with the banks of the property developers, who had been bankrupted by a market crash. In the mid-1990s Chelsea fan and businessman Matthew Harding became a director and loaned the club £26 million to build the new North Stand and invest in new players. Chelsea's form in the new Premier League was unconvincing, although they did reach the 1994 FA Cup final. The appointment of Ruud Gullit as player-manager in 1996 began an upturn in the team's fortunes. He added several top international players to the side and led the club to their first major honour since 1971, the FA Cup. Gullit was replaced by Gianluca Vialli, whose reign saw Chelsea win the League Cup, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup and the UEFA Super Cup in 1998, and the FA Cup in 2000. They mounted a strong title challenge in 1998–99, finishing four points behind champions Manchester United, and made their first appearance in the UEFA Champions League. Vialli was sacked in favour of Claudio Ranieri, who guided Chelsea to the 2002 FA Cup final and Champions League qualification in 2002–03.

Abramovich ownership (2003–2022)
With the club facing an apparent financial crisis, Bates unexpectedly sold Chelsea F.C. in June 2003 for £60 million. In so doing, he reportedly recognised a personal profit of £17 million on the club he had bought for £1 in 1982 (his stake had been diluted to just below 30% over the years). The club's new owner was Russian oligarch and billionaire Roman Abramovich, who took on responsibility for the club's £80 million of debt, quickly paying some of it. Sergei Pugachev alleged Chelsea was bought on Putin's orders, an allegation Abramovich has denied. Bates mentioned that Abramovich was in talks to buy Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur before he bought Chelsea in a deal sealed in a day.

Over £100 million was spent on new players, but Ranieri was unable to deliver any trophies, and was replaced by José Mourinho. Under Mourinho, Chelsea became the fifth English team to win back-to-back league championships since the Second World War (2004–05 and 2005–06), in addition to winning an FA Cup (2007) and two League Cups (2005 and 2007). After a poor start to the 2007–08 season, Mourinho was replaced by Avram Grant, who led the club to their first UEFA Champions League final, which they lost on penalties to Manchester United. The club did not turn a profit in the first nine years of Abramovich's ownership, and made record losses of £140m in June 2005.

In 2009, under caretaker manager Guus Hiddink, Chelsea won another FA Cup. In 2009–10, his successor Carlo Ancelotti led them to their first Premier League and FA Cup Double, becoming the first English top-flight club to score 100 league goals in a season since 1963. In 2012, Roberto Di Matteo led Chelsea to their seventh FA Cup, and their first UEFA Champions League title, beating Bayern Munich 4–3 on penalties, the first London club to win the trophy. The following year the club won the UEFA Europa League, making them the first club to hold two major European titles simultaneously and one of five clubs to have won the three main UEFA trophies. Mourinho returned as manager in 2013 and led Chelsea to League Cup success in March 2015, and the Premier League title two months later. Mourinho was sacked after four months of the following season after a poor start.

In November 2012, Chelsea announced a profit of £1.4 million for the year ending 30 June 2012, the first time the club had made a profit under Abramovich's ownership. This was followed by a loss in 2013 and then their highest ever profit of £18.4 million for the year to June 2014. In 2018 Chelsea announced a record after-tax profit of £62 million.

In 2017, under new coach Antonio Conte, Chelsea won their sixth English title and the following season won their eighth FA Cup. In 2018 Conte was sacked after a fifth-place finish and replaced with Maurizio Sarri, under whom Chelsea reached the League Cup final, which they lost on penalties to Manchester City and won the Europa League for a second time, beating Arsenal 4–1 in the final. Sarri then left the club to become manager of Juventus and was replaced by former Chelsea player Frank Lampard.

In Lampard's first season he guided Chelsea to fourth place in the Premier League and reached the FA Cup final, losing 2–1 to Arsenal. Lampard was dismissed in January 2021 and replaced with Thomas Tuchel. Under Tuchel, Chelsea reached the FA Cup final, losing 1–0 to Leicester City, and won their second UEFA Champions League title with a 1–0 win over Manchester City in Porto. The club subsequently won the 2021 UEFA Super Cup for the second time by defeating Villarreal 6–5 in a penalty shootout, after it had ended 1–1 in Belfast after extra time, and the 2021 FIFA Club World Cup (the first for the club) in Abu Dhabi after beating Brazilian Palmeiras 2–1.

On 18 April 2021, Chelsea announced it would be joining a new European Super League, a league competition comprising the biggest European clubs. After a backlash from supporters, the club announced their withdrawal days later. The club opted against furloughing their non-matchday staff during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the decision reportedly coming from Abramovich himself. Chelsea, one of the first clubs to help the National Health Service, lent the club-owned Millennium Hotel for the NHS staff.

Amidst financial sanctions leveled at Russian oligarchs by Western governments in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Abramovich stated on 26 February that he would hand over the stewardship of Chelsea to the trustees of the Chelsea Foundation. The trustees did not immediately agree, due to legal concerns regarding the rules of the Charity Commission for England and Wales. A week later, Abramovich wrote-off the £1.5 billion the club owed him, and put the club up for sale, pledging to donate net proceeds from it to the victims of the war in Ukraine.

On 10 March 2022, the British government announced sanctions on Abramovich with Chelsea allowed to operate under a special license until 31 May. In the following weeks, reports emerged of Abramovich's involvement in brokering a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia and securing safe evacuation corridors in besieged Ukrainian cities. An American government official revealed that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy had requested that the US government not levy sanctions against Abramovich given his importance to war relief efforts.

BlueCo ownership (2022–present)
On 7 May 2022, Chelsea confirmed that terms have been agreed for a new ownership group, led by Todd Boehly, Clearlake Capital, Mark Walter and Hansjörg Wyss, to acquire the club. The group was later known as BlueCo. The UK government approved the £4.25bn takeover, ending Abramovich's 19-year ownership of the club. Bruce Buck, who served as chairman since 2003, was replaced by Boehly, while long-serving club director and de facto sporting director Marina Granovskaia left, as did Petr Čech from the role of technical and performance advisor.

The club brought in Graham Potter from Brighton & Hove Albion to replace Tuchel on 8 September 2022. Chelsea won six of the first 11 games of the 2022–23 season, but only five of the remaining 27. Potter would be sacked on 2 April 2023 and eventually be replaced by Frank Lampard as caretaker manager. Under Lampard the club would only win one of their last 11 matches resulting in a 9% win percentage. Lampard's win percentage was the worst for any Chelsea manager who managed three games or more. Chelsea scored a record-low 38 goals across the entire season and finished in the bottom half of the table for the first time since 1995–96.

Mauricio Pochettino was announced as Lampard's replacement on 1 July 2023 on a two-year contract. He led Chelsea to a 6th-place finish after winning their final five games of the 2023–24 season, which earned the club a Conference League play-off round qualification. After clashing with the sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley over strategy and management of the young squad, Pochettino agreed to leave the club at the end of the season.

On 3 June 2024, Enzo Maresca was announced as Pochettino's replacement, with the Italian set to start his activity on 1 July 2024.

League history
L1 = Level 1 of the football league system; L2 = Level 2 of the football league system

Stadium
Chelsea have only had one home ground, Stamford Bridge, where they have played since the team's foundation. The stadium was officially opened on 28 April 1877 and for the next 28 years it was used by the London Athletic Club as an arena for athletics meetings. In 1904, the ground was acquired by businessman Gus Mears and his brother Joseph, who had purchased nearby land (formerly a large market garden) with the aim of staging football matches on the now 12.5 acre (51,000 m2) site. Stamford Bridge was designed for the Mears family by the noted football architect Archibald Leitch, who had designed Ibrox, Craven Cottage and Hampden Park. Most football clubs were founded first, and then sought grounds in which to play, but Chelsea were founded for Stamford Bridge.

Starting with an open bowl-like design and one grandstand with seating, Stamford Bridge had an original capacity of around 100,000, making it the second biggest stadium in England after Crystal Palace. The early 1930s saw the construction of a terrace on the southern part of the ground with a roof that covered around 20% of the stand. As the roof resembled that of a corrugated iron shed, the stand eventually became known as the "Shed End", although it is unknown who first coined this name. From the 1960s, it became known as the home of Chelsea's most loyal and vocal supporters. In 1939, another small seated stand was added, the North Stand, which remained until its demolition in 1975.

In the early 1970s, the club's owners announced a modernisation of Stamford Bridge with plans for a state-of-the-art 50,000 all-seater stadium. Work began in 1972 but the project was beset with problems and ultimately only the East Stand was completed; the cost brought the club close to bankruptcy. The freehold was sold to property developers and the club were under threat of eviction from the stadium. Following a long legal battle, it was not until the mid-1990s that Chelsea's future at Stamford Bridge was secured and renovation work resumed. The north, west and southern parts of the ground were converted into all-seater stands and moved closer to the pitch, a process completed by 2001. The East Stand was retained from the 1970s development. In 1996, the north stand was renamed the Matthew Harding stand, after the club director and benefactor who was killed in a helicopter crash earlier that year. When Stamford Bridge was redeveloped in the Bates era many additional features were added to the complex including two Millennium & Copthorne hotels, apartments, bars, restaurants, the Chelsea Megastore, and an interactive visitor attraction called Chelsea World of Sport. The intention was that these facilities would provide extra revenue to support the football side of the business, but they were less successful than hoped and before the Abramovich takeover in 2003 the debt taken on to finance them was a major burden on the club. Soon after the takeover a decision was taken to drop the "Chelsea Village" brand and refocus on Chelsea as a football club. However, the stadium is sometimes still referred to as part of "Chelsea Village" or "The Village".

The Stamford Bridge freehold, the pitch, the turnstiles and Chelsea's naming rights are now owned by Chelsea Pitch Owners, a non-profit organisation in which fans are the shareholders. The CPO was created to ensure the stadium could never again be sold to developers. As a condition for using the Chelsea FC name, the club has to play its first team matches at Stamford Bridge, which means that if the club moves to a new stadium, they may have to change their name. Chelsea's training ground is located in Cobham, Surrey. Chelsea moved to Cobham in 2004. Their previous training ground in Harlington was taken over by QPR in 2005. The new training facilities in Cobham were completed in 2007. Stamford Bridge hosted the FA Cup final from 1920 to 1922, has held 10 FA Cup Semi-finals (most recently in 1978), ten FA Charity Shield matches (the last in 1970), and three England international matches, the last in 1932; it was the venue for an unofficial Victory International in 1946. The 2013 UEFA Women's Champions League final was played at Stamford Bridge as well. The stadium has been used for a variety of other sports. In October 1905 it hosted a rugby union match between the All Blacks and Middlesex, and in 1914 hosted a baseball match between the touring New York Giants and the Chicago White Sox. It was the venue for a boxing match between world flyweight champion Jimmy Wilde and Joe Conn in 1918. The running track was used for dirt track racing between 1928 and 1932, greyhound racing from 1933 to 1968, and Midget car racing in 1948. In 1980, Stamford Bridge hosted the first international floodlit cricket match in the UK, between Essex and the West Indies. It was the home stadium of the London Monarchs American Football team for the 1997 season.

The previous owner Abramovich and the club's then executive board determined that a larger stadium is necessary in order for Chelsea to stay competitive with rival clubs who have significantly larger stadia, such as Arsenal and Manchester United. Owing to its location next to a main road and two railway lines, fans can only enter Stamford Bridge via the Fulham Road, which places constraints on expansion due to health and safety regulations. The club have consistently affirmed their desire to keep Chelsea at their current home, but have nonetheless been linked with a move to various nearby sites, including the Earls Court Exhibition Centre, Battersea Power Station and the Chelsea Barracks. In October 2011, a proposal from the club to buy back the freehold to the land on which Stamford Bridge sits was voted down by Chelsea Pitch Owners shareholders. In May 2012, the club made a formal bid to purchase Battersea Power Station, with a view to developing the site into a new stadium, but lost out to a Malaysian consortium. The club subsequently announced plans to redevelop Stamford Bridge into a 60,000-seater stadium, and in January 2017 these plans were approved by Hammersmith and Fulham council. However, on 31 May 2018, the club released a statement saying that the new stadium project had been put on hold indefinitely, citing "the current unfavourable investment climate."

In July 2022, it was reported that the club's new owner Todd Boehly had appointed American architect Janet Marie Smith to oversee the renovation of the stadium.

Crest
Chelsea has had four main crests, which all underwent minor variations. The first, adopted when the club was founded, was the image of a Chelsea Pensioner, the army veterans who reside at the nearby Royal Hospital Chelsea. This contributed to the club's original "pensioner" nickname, and remained for the next half-century, though it never appeared on the shirts. When Ted Drake became Chelsea manager in 1952, he began to modernise the club. Believing the Chelsea pensioner crest to be old-fashioned, he insisted that it be replaced. A stop-gap badge which comprised the initials C.F.C. was adopted for a year. In 1953, the club crest was changed to an upright blue lion looking backwards and holding a staff. It was based on elements in the coat of arms of the Metropolitan Borough of Chelsea with the "lion rampant regardant" taken from the arms of then club president Viscount Chelsea and the staff from the Abbots of Westminster, former Lords of the Manor of Chelsea. It featured three red roses, to represent England, and two footballs. This was the first Chelsea crest to appear on the shirts, in the early 1960s. In 1975, a heraldic badge was granted by the College of Arms to the English Football League for use by Chelsea. The badge took the form of the familiar lion and staff encircled by a blue ring but without lettering and without the red roses and red footballs (blazoned as "A lion rampant reguardant azure supporting with the forepaws a crozier or all within an annulet azure"). In 1986, with Ken Bates owner of the club, Chelsea's crest was changed again as part of another attempt to modernise and because the old rampant lion badge could not be trademarked. The new badge featured a more naturalistic non-heraldic lion, in white and not blue, standing over the C.F.C. initials. This lasted for the next 19 years, with some modifications such as the use of different colours, including red from 1987 to 1995, and yellow from 1995 until 1999, before the white returned. With the new ownership of Roman Abramovich, and the club's centenary approaching, combined with demands from fans for the popular 1950s badge to be restored, it was decided that the crest should be changed again in 2005. The new crest was officially adopted for the start of the 2005–06 season and marked a return to the older design, used from 1953 to 1986, featuring a blue heraldic lion holding a staff. For the centenary season this was accompanied by the words '100 Years' and 'Centenary 2005–2006' on the top and bottom of the crest respectively.

Colours
Chelsea have always worn blue shirts, although they originally used the paler eton blue, which was taken from the racing colours of then club president, Earl Cadogan, and was worn with white shorts and dark blue or black socks. The light blue shirts were replaced by a royal blue version in around 1912. In the 1960s Chelsea manager Tommy Docherty changed the kit again, switching to blue shorts (which have remained ever since) and white socks, believing it made the club's colours more modern and distinctive, since no other major side used that combination; this kit was first worn during the 1964–65 season. Since then Chelsea have always worn white socks with their home kit apart from a short spell from 1985 to 1992, when blue socks were reintroduced.

Chelsea's away colours are usually all yellow or all white with blue trim. More recently, the club have had a number of black or dark blue away kits which alternate every year. As with most teams, they have had some more unusual ones. At Docherty's behest, in the 1966 FA Cup semi-final they wore blue and black stripes, based on Inter Milan's kit. In the mid-1970s, the away strip was a red, white and green kit inspired by the Hungarian national side of the 1950s. Other away kits include an all jade strip worn from 1986 to 1989, red and white diamonds from 1990 to 1992, graphite and tangerine from 1994 to 1996, and luminous yellow from 2007 to 2008. The graphite and tangerine strip has appeared in lists of the worst football kits ever.

Songs and fan chants
The song "Blue is the Colour" was released as a single in the build-up to the 1972 League Cup final, with all members of Chelsea's first team squad singing; it reached number five in the UK Singles Chart. The song has since been adopted by a number of other sports teams around the world, including the Vancouver Whitecaps (as "White is the Colour") and the Saskatchewan Roughriders (as "Green is the Colour").

Chelsea released the song "No One Can Stop Us Now" in 1994 for reaching the 1994 FA Cup final. It reached number 23 in the UK Singles Chart. In the build-up to the 1997 FA Cup final, the song "Blue Day", performed by Suggs and members of the Chelsea squad, reached number 22 in the UK chart. In 2000, Chelsea released the song "Blue Tomorrow". It reached number 22 in the UK Singles Chart.

At matches, Chelsea fans sing chants such as "Carefree" (to the tune of "Lord of the Dance", whose lyrics were probably written by supporter Mick Greenaway), "Ten Men Went to Mow", "We All Follow the Chelsea" (to the tune of "Land of Hope and Glory"), "Zigga Zagga", and the celebratory "Celery". The latter is often accompanied by fans throwing celery at each other, although the vegetable was banned inside Stamford Bridge after an incident involving midfielder Cesc Fàbregas at the 2007 League Cup final. Popular fan chants include, "Super Chelsea", "Super Frank" (dedicated to all-time leading goal scorer Frank Lampard), "We love you Chelsea" and "Come on Chelsea". There are situation-specific or team-specific chants meant to rile up opposition teams, managers or players.

Support
Chelsea is among the most widely supported football clubs in the world. It has the sixth-highest average attendance in the history of English football, and regularly attract over 40,000 fans to Stamford Bridge; they were the ninth best-supported Premier League team in the 2023–24 season, with an average gate of 39,700. Chelsea's traditional fanbase comes from all over the Greater London area including working-class parts such as Hammersmith and Battersea, wealthier areas like Chelsea and Kensington, and from the home counties. There are numerous official supporters clubs in the United Kingdom and all over the world. Between 2007 and 2012, Chelsea were ranked fourth worldwide in annual replica kit sales, with an average of 910,000. As of 2023, Chelsea has 118.9 million followers on social media, the fourth highest among football clubs.

During the 1970s and 1980s in particular, Chelsea supporters were associated with football hooliganism. The club's "football firm", originally known as the Chelsea Shed Boys, and subsequently as the Chelsea Headhunters, were nationally notorious for football violence, alongside hooligan firms from other clubs such as West Ham United's Inter City Firm and Millwall's Bushwackers, before, during and after matches. The increase of hooligan incidents in the 1980s led chairman Ken Bates to propose erecting an electric fence to deter them from invading the pitch, a proposal that the Greater London Council rejected.

Since the 1990s, there has been a marked decline in crowd trouble at matches, as a result of stricter policing, CCTV in grounds and the advent of all-seater stadia. In 2007, the club launched the Back to the Shed campaign to improve the atmosphere at home matches, with notable success. According to Home Office statistics, 126 Chelsea fans were arrested for football-related offences during the 2009–10 season, the third highest in the division, and 27 banning orders were issued, the fifth-highest in the division.

Rivalries
Chelsea have long-standing rivalries with North London clubs Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur. A strong rivalry with Leeds United dates back to several heated and controversial matches in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly the 1970 FA Cup final. More recently a rivalry with Liverpool has grown following repeated clashes in cup competitions. Fellow West London clubs Brentford, Fulham and Queens Park Rangers are considered rivals, but less so in recent times as matches have only taken place intermittently due to the teams often being in separate divisions.

A 2004 survey by Planetfootball.com found that Chelsea fans consider their main rivalries to be with (in descending order): Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United. In the same survey, fans of Arsenal, Fulham, Leeds United, QPR, Tottenham, and West Ham United named Chelsea as one of their three main rivals. In a 2008 poll conducted by the Football Fans Census, Chelsea fans named Liverpool, Arsenal and Manchester United as their most disliked clubs. In the same survey, "Chelsea" was the top answer to the question "Which other English club do you dislike the most?" A 2012 survey, conducted among 1,200 supporters of the top four league divisions across the country, found that many clubs' main rivals had changed since 2003 and reported that Chelsea fans consider Tottenham to be their main rivals, above Arsenal and Manchester United. Additionally, fans of Arsenal, Brentford, Fulham, Liverpool, Manchester United, QPR, Tottenham and West Ham identified Chelsea as one of their top three rivals.

Records and statistics
Chelsea's highest appearance-maker is ex-captain Ron Harris, who played in 795 competitive games for the club between 1961 and 1980. Five other players made more than 500 appearances for the club: Peter Bonetti (729; 1959–79), John Terry (717; 1998–2017), Frank Lampard (648; 2001–2014), John Hollins (592; 1963–1975 and 1983–1984), and César Azpilicueta (508; 2012–2023). With 103 caps (101 while at the club) for England, Lampard is Chelsea's most capped international player. Every starting player in Chelsea's 57 games of the 2013–14 season was a full international – a new club record.

Lampard is Chelsea's all-time top goalscorer, having scored 211 goals in 648 games (2001–2014); he passed Bobby Tambling's longstanding record of 202 in May 2013. Eight other players have scored over 100 goals for Chelsea: George Hilsdon (1906–1912), George Mills (1929–1939), Roy Bentley (1948–1956), Jimmy Greaves (1957–1961), Peter Osgood (1964–1974 and 1978–1979), Kerry Dixon (1983–1992), Didier Drogba (2004–2012 and 2014–2015), and Eden Hazard (2012–2019). Greaves holds the club record for the most goals scored in one season (43 in 1960–61). While a Chelsea player, Greaves became the youngest ever player to score 100 goals in the English top-flight, at 20 years and 290 days.

Chelsea's biggest winning scoreline in a competitive match is 13–0, achieved against Jeunesse Hautcharage in the Cup Winners' Cup in 1971. The club's biggest top-flight win was an 8–0 victory against Wigan Athletic in 2010, which was matched in 2012 against Aston Villa. Chelsea's biggest loss was an 8–1 reverse against Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1953. The club's 21–0 aggregate victory over Jeunesse Hautcharage in the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1971 is a record in European competition. Officially, Chelsea's highest home attendance is 82,905 for a First Division match against Arsenal on 12 October 1935. However, an estimated crowd of over 100,000 attended a friendly match against Soviet team Dynamo Moscow on 13 November 1945.

From 20 March 2004 to 26 October 2008, Chelsea went a record 86 consecutive league matches at home without defeat, beating the previous record of 63 matches unbeaten set by Liverpool between 1978 and 1980. Chelsea hold the English record for the fewest goals conceded during a league season (15), the highest number of clean sheets overall in a Premier League season (25) (both set during the 2004–05 season), and the most consecutive clean sheets from the start of a league season (6, set during the 2005–06 season). Chelsea is the only Premier League side to have won its opening nine league games of the season, doing so in 2005–06. From 2009 to 2013, Chelsea were unbeaten in a record 29 consecutive FA Cup matches (excluding penalty shoot-outs).

On 25 August 1928, Chelsea, along with Arsenal, became the first club to play with shirt numbers, in their match against Swansea Town. They were the first English side to travel by aeroplane to a domestic away match, when they visited Newcastle United on 19 April 1957, and the first First Division side to play a match on a Sunday, when they faced Stoke City on 27 January 1974. On 26 December 1999, Chelsea became the first British side to field an entirely foreign starting line-up (no British or Irish players) in a Premier League match against Southampton. In May 2007, Chelsea were the first team to win the FA Cup at the new Wembley Stadium, having been the last to win it at the old Wembley. They were the first English club to be ranked No. 1 under UEFA's five-year coefficient system in the 21st century. They were the first Premier League team, and the first team in the English top flight since 1962–63, to score at least 100 goals in a single season, reaching the milestone during the 2009–10 season. Chelsea is the only London club to have won the UEFA Champions League. Upon winning the 2012–13 UEFA Europa League, Chelsea became the first English club to win all four UEFA club trophies and the only club to hold the Champions League and the Europa League at the same time.

Chelsea have broken the record for the highest transfer fee paid by a British club three times. Their £30.8 million purchase of Andriy Shevchenko from A.C. Milan in June 2006 was a British record until surpassed by the £32.5 million paid by Manchester City for Robinho in September 2008. The club's £50 million purchase of Fernando Torres from Liverpool in January 2011 held the record until Ángel Di María signed for Manchester United in August 2014 for £59.7 million. The club's £71 million purchase of Kepa Arrizabalaga in August 2018 remains a world record fee paid for a goalkeeper.

On 12 February 2022, Chelsea became the first London club to win the FIFA Club World Cup against Palmeiras with Kai Havertz scoring a late penalty. Chelsea broke the spending record in the winter transfer window with a £289 million spending spree on eight new signings, with the £107 million signing of Enzo Fernandez breaking the British transfer record.

Ownership and finances
Chelsea Football Club was founded by Gus Mears in 1905. After his death in 1912, his descendants continued to own the club until 1982, when Ken Bates bought the club from Mears' great-nephew Brian Mears for £1. Bates bought a controlling stake in the club and floated Chelsea on the AIM stock exchange in March 1996. In the mid-1990s Chelsea fan and businessman Matthew Harding became a director, and loaned the club £26 million to build the new North Stand and invest in new players.

In July 2003, Roman Abramovich purchased just over 50% of Chelsea Village plc's share capital, including Bates' 29.5% stake, for £30 million and over the following weeks bought out most of the remaining 12,000 shareholders at 35 pence per share, completing a £140 million takeover. Other shareholders at the time of the takeover included the Matthew Harding estate (21%), BSkyB (9.9%) and various anonymous offshore trusts.

At the time of the Abramovich takeover, the club had debts of around £100 million, which included a 10-year £75 million Eurobond taken out in 1997 by the Bates regime to buy the freehold of Stamford Bridge and finance the redevelopment of the stadium. The 9% interest on the loan cost the club around £7 million a year and according to Bruce Buck, Chelsea were struggling to pay an instalment due in July 2003. Abramovich paid off some of that debt immediately, but the outstanding £36 million on the Eurobond was not fully repaid until 2008. Since then, the club had no external debt.

Abramovich changed the ownership name to Chelsea FC plc, whose ultimate parent company was Fordstam Limited, which was controlled by him. Chelsea were additionally funded by Abramovich via interest free soft loans channelled through his holding company Fordstam Limited. The loans stood at £709 million in December 2009, when they were all converted to equity by Abramovich, leaving the club themselves debt free, although the debt remained with Fordstam.

Chelsea did not turn a profit in the first nine years of Abramovich's ownership, and made record losses of £140m in June 2005. In November 2012, Chelsea announced a profit of £1.4 million for the year ending 30 June 2012, the first time the club had made a profit under Abramovich's ownership. This was followed by a loss in 2013 and then their highest ever profit of £18.4 million for the year to June 2014. In 2018 Chelsea announced a record after-tax profit of £62 million.

Chelsea has been described as a global brand; a 2012 report by Brand Finance ranked Chelsea fifth among football brands and valued the club's brand value at US$398 million – an increase of 27% from the previous year, valuing it at US$10 million more than the sixth best brand, London rivals Arsenal – and gave the brand a strength rating of AA (very strong). In 2016, Forbes magazine ranked Chelsea the seventh most valuable football club in the world, at £1.15 billion ($1.66 billion). , Chelsea was ranked eighth in the Deloitte Football Money League with an annual commercial revenue of £322.59 million.

As of May 2022, Chelsea was ranked the eighth-most valuable club in the world according to Forbes, and eighth according to Deloitte, with an annual commercial revenue of €493.1 million.

The club's recent accounting records highlight £26.6m they lost in compensation to former head coach Antonio Conte for sacking and to pay off his backroom staff and the legal costs that followed.

On 26 February 2022, during the Russo-Ukrainian War, Abramovich handed over "stewardship and care" of Chelsea FC to the Chelsea Charitable Foundation. Abramovich released an official statement on 2 March 2022 confirming that he was selling the club due to the ongoing situation in Ukraine. Although the UK government froze Abramovich's assets in United Kingdom on 10 March due to his "close ties with Kremlin", it was made clear that the Chelsea club will be allowed to operate in terms of activities which are football related. On 12 March, the Premier League disqualified Abramovich as a director of Chelsea Football Club.

On 19 March 2022, there were five confirmed bids to acquire Chelsea FC: submitted to Raine Capital which was handling the sale of the club. Some of these were a consortium led by ex-Liverpool chairman Sir Martin Broughton, a group of investors led by the Ricketts family (among them Joe and Pete Ricketts), Swiss and American businessmen Hansjörg Wyss and Todd Boehly, Aethel Partners headed by Portuguese Ricardo Santos Silva and British businessman Nick Candy, supported by former Chelsea striker Gianluca Vialli.

On 7 May, the club finally confirmed that "terms have been agreed" for a new ownership group led by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital. On 30 May, it was confirmed that the Boehly consortium had completed the purchase of the club. The consortium includes Wyss and Mark Walter. Walter and Boehly are also owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the Los Angeles Sparks. The consortium was later known as BlueCo. The transaction had received all necessary approvals from the governments of the United Kingdom and, the Premier League, and other authorities.

Sponsorship
Chelsea's kit has been manufactured by Nike since July 2017. Previously, the kit was manufactured by Adidas, which was originally contracted to supply the club's kit from 2006 to 2018. The partnership was extended in October 2010 in a deal worth £160 million over eight years. This deal was again extended in June 2013 in a deal worth £300 million over another 10 years. In May 2016, Adidas announced that by mutual agreement, the kit sponsorship would end six years early on 30 June 2017. Chelsea had to pay £40m in compensation to Adidas. In October 2016, Nike was announced as the new kit sponsor, in a deal worth £900m over 15 years, until 2032. Previously, the kit was manufactured by Umbro (1975–81), Le Coq Sportif (1981–86), The Chelsea Collection (1986–87), Umbro (1987–2006), and Adidas (2006–2017).

Chelsea's first shirt sponsor was Gulf Air, agreed during the 1983–84 season. The club was then sponsored by Grange Farms, Bai Lin Tea and Simod before a long-term deal was signed with Commodore International in 1989; Amiga, an offshoot of Commodore, appeared on the shirts. Chelsea was subsequently sponsored by Coors beer (1994–97), Autoglass (1997–2001), Emirates (2001–05), Samsung Mobile (2005–08), Samsung (2008–15) and Yokohama Tyres (2015–20). From July 2020, Chelsea's sponsor was Three; however, it temporarily suspended its sponsorship in March 2022 in response to sanctions leveled by the UK government against Abramovich. It restored its sponsorship after the change of ownership of the club.

Following the introduction of sleeve sponsors in the Premier League, Chelsea had Alliance Tyres as its first sleeve sponsor in the 2017–18 season, followed by Hyundai Motor Company in 2018–19 season. In 2022–23 season, Amber Group became the new sleeve sponsor, with the flagship digital asset platform WhaleFin appearing on the sleeves of both men's and women's teams.

The club has a variety of other sponsors and official partners, which include Cadbury, EA Sports, FICO, Hilton Worldwide, 3 (company), Levy Restaurants, MSC Cruises, Oman Air, Parimatch, Rexona, Singha, The St. James, Trivago and BingX.

Popular culture
In 1930, Chelsea featured in one of the earliest football films, The Great Game. One-time Chelsea centre forward, Jack Cock, who by then was playing for Millwall, was the star of the film and several scenes were shot at Stamford Bridge, including on the pitch, the boardroom, and the dressing rooms. It included guest appearances by then-Chelsea players Andrew Wilson, George Mills, and Sam Millington. Owing to the notoriety of the Chelsea Headhunters, a football firm associated with the club, Chelsea have featured in films about football hooliganism, including 2004's The Football Factory. Chelsea appeared in the Hindi film Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. In April 2011, Montenegrin comedy series Nijesmo mi od juče made an episode in which Chelsea played against FK Sutjeska Nikšić for qualification of the UEFA Champions League.

Up until the 1950s, the club had a long-running association with the music halls; their underachievement often provided material for comedians such as George Robey. It culminated in comedian Norman Long's release of a comic song in 1933, ironically titled "On the Day That Chelsea Went and Won the Cup", the lyrics of which describe a series of bizarre and improbable occurrences on the hypothetical day when Chelsea finally won a trophy. In Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 film The 39 Steps, Mr Memory claims that Chelsea last won the Cup in 63 BC, "in the presence of the Emperor Nero." Scenes in a 1980 episode of Minder were filmed during a real match at Stamford Bridge between Chelsea and Preston North End with Terry McCann (Dennis Waterman) standing on the terraces.

Development Squad and Academy

 * Players to have at least one first-team appearance for Chelsea.

Coaching staff
{|class="wikitable" !Position !Staff
 * Head coach||🇮🇹 Enzo Maresca
 * Assistant coach||🇦🇷 Willy Caballero
 * rowspan="2"|First team coach||🇮🇹 Roberto Vitiello
 * 🏴 Danny Walker
 * rowspan="2"|Goalkeeper coaches||🇮🇹 Michele De Bernardin
 * Hilário
 * Assistant goalkeeper coach||🏴 James Russell
 * Head of global goalkeeping|||🏴 Ben Roberts
 * Fitness coaches||🇪🇸 Marcos Alvarez
 * Technical analyst||🇲🇽 Bernardo Cueva
 * Match analyst||🇪🇸 Javi Molina
 * Loan technical coaches||🇮🇹 Carlo Cudicini
 * Development squad head coach|| Filipe Coelho
 * rowspan="2"|Development squad assistant||🏴 Jack Mesure
 * 🏴 James Simmonds
 * Under-18s head coach||🏴 Hassan Sulaiman
 * rowspan="2"|Under-18s assistant|| Andy Ross
 * 🏴 Jimmy Smith
 * Technical analyst||🇲🇽 Bernardo Cueva
 * Match analyst||🇪🇸 Javi Molina
 * Loan technical coaches||🇮🇹 Carlo Cudicini
 * Development squad head coach|| Filipe Coelho
 * rowspan="2"|Development squad assistant||🏴 Jack Mesure
 * 🏴 James Simmonds
 * Under-18s head coach||🏴 Hassan Sulaiman
 * rowspan="2"|Under-18s assistant|| Andy Ross
 * 🏴 Jimmy Smith
 * rowspan="2"|Development squad assistant||🏴 Jack Mesure
 * 🏴 James Simmonds
 * Under-18s head coach||🏴 Hassan Sulaiman
 * rowspan="2"|Under-18s assistant|| Andy Ross
 * 🏴 Jimmy Smith
 * rowspan="2"|Under-18s assistant|| Andy Ross
 * 🏴 Jimmy Smith
 * 🏴 Jimmy Smith
 * 🏴 Jimmy Smith

Notable managers
The following managers won at least one trophy when in charge of Chelsea:

Club personnel
{|class="wikitable" !Position !Name
 * Chairman||🇺🇸 Todd Boehly
 * Life president||🏴 Richard Attenborough (1923–2014)
 * rowspan="9"|Directors||🏴 David Barnard
 * 🇺🇸 Barbara Charone
 * 🇺🇸 Behdad Eghbali
 * 🇺🇸 José E. Feliciano
 * 🏴 Daniel Finkelstein
 * 🏴 Jonathan Goldstein
 * 🇺🇸 James Pade
 * 🇺🇸 Mark Walter
 * Hansjörg Wyss
 * Chief executive officer||🇺🇸 Chris Jurasek
 * President of business||🇺🇸 Tom Glick
 * Director of football operations||🏴 David Barnard
 * rowspan="3"|Vice presidents||🏴 Joe Hemani
 * 🏴 Anthony Reeves
 * 🏴 Alan Spence
 * 🇺🇸 James Pade
 * 🇺🇸 Mark Walter
 * Hansjörg Wyss
 * Chief executive officer||🇺🇸 Chris Jurasek
 * President of business||🇺🇸 Tom Glick
 * Director of football operations||🏴 David Barnard
 * rowspan="3"|Vice presidents||🏴 Joe Hemani
 * 🏴 Anthony Reeves
 * 🏴 Alan Spence
 * Director of football operations||🏴 David Barnard
 * rowspan="3"|Vice presidents||🏴 Joe Hemani
 * 🏴 Anthony Reeves
 * 🏴 Alan Spence
 * 🏴 Anthony Reeves
 * 🏴 Alan Spence
 * 🏴 Alan Spence
 * 🏴 Alan Spence

Honours
Upon winning the 2012–13 UEFA Europa League, Chelsea became the fourth club in history to have won the "European Treble" of European Cup/UEFA Champions League, UEFA Cup/UEFA Europa League, and European Cup Winners' Cup/UEFA Cup Winners' Cup after Juventus, Ajax and Bayern Munich. Chelsea is the first English club to have won all three major UEFA trophies.

 * {{legend|gold|record}}
 * shared record

Doubles

 * Premier League and FA Cup: 2009–10
 * Premier League and League Cup: 2004–05, 2014–15
 * League Cup and European Cup Winners' Cup: 1997–98
 * FA Cup and League Cup: 2006–07
 * FA Cup and UEFA Champions League: 2011–12

Chelsea Women
Chelsea operate a women's football team, Chelsea Football Club Women, formerly known as Chelsea Ladies. They have been affiliated to the men's team since 2004 and are part of the club's Community Development programme. They play their home games at Kingsmeadow, formerly the home ground of the EFL League Two club AFC Wimbledon. The club were promoted to the Premier Division for the first time in 2005 as Southern Division champions and won the Surrey County Cup nine times between 2003 and 2013. In 2010, Chelsea Ladies were one of the eight founder members of the FA Women's Super League. In 2015, Chelsea Ladies won the FA Women's Cup for the first time, beating Notts County Ladies at Wembley Stadium, and a month later clinched their first FA WSL title to complete a league and cup double. In 2018, they won a second league and FA Cup double. Two years later, in 2020, they repeated their double success by winning the third league title and the FA Women's League Cup for the first time. In the 2020–21 season, Chelsea won a domestic treble by winning the league, FA Cup and League Cup. They reached the final of the UEFA Women's Champions League for the first time, losing to Barcelona 4–0.

John Terry, former captain of the Chelsea men's team, is the president of Chelsea Women.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Chelsea F.C.


text:
Talk:Christian Mythology

Are the examples in this article appropriate for the term "mythology?" King Arthur isn't really related at all to the accounts in the Bible or the Hebrew scriptures. Your right, this article definitely needs some clarification. -- Jzcool

I recommend that ideas which are currently part of mainstream theologies not be labelled mythology. To me at least, mythology implies legends that are no longer taken seriously, like the greek myths. While to a materialist, all the supernatural parts of the Bible may by "myth", to religious believers these things are part of their living faith.

Perhaps a less insulting term can be used, which nevertheless serves the purpose. Perhaps someone less emotionally involved than I am, can straighten this out: neither a fervent believer nor a materialist. Who will it be? --Ed Poor

 * I agree with this. We have to be careful not to label The New Testament, nor most of the Apocrypha, belief in the existence of angels, demons and the devil or Hebrew New Testament quotations as 'mythology'. This label will indeed offend many Christians. I'm afraid whoever started this article will have to come up with specific stories generally considered myths. Then we can look at those examples one by one.--TK

I think it is entirely appropriate to describe these stories as myths. A "myth", despite the popular impression to the contrary, is not a false story -- it is merely a religious story. If we are not going to call Christian religious stories false, what right do we have to call the religious of the ancient Pagan faiths myths? To make this distinction between Christian stories and Pagan stories is not NPOV.

And if you counter that many people today make use of Pagan stories, or find them in some way enjoyable, without believing in their truth: the same thing applies to the Bible also. Many non-Christians find the Bible an interesting book to read without actually believing half the stories therein are true. -- SJK

As the main author of this page, I certainly meant no insult, and I tried to keep a NPOV that was sensitive to religious faith.

I think there are stories that are mythological that have very strong Christian themes -- these I would call Christian Myths. For example, the stories of King Arthur and stories of common folk outsmarting the Devil. (Folklore might be an interesting avenue to explore as well.) These are less controversial, I think, because fewer people believe these to be divinely inspired truths.

More controversial are texts that to some are both sacred and true but that to others are merely equivalent to other mythologies -- for example, the beginning of Genesis and other creation myths, the story of Noah and portions of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Norse Ragnorak and the Apocalypse. I suggest that the best way to approach these topics from a NPOV is to point out (with citations, ideally) that some consider these to be mythological while others find such characterizations offensive.

Ed Poor, you seem to disagree with the terms "myth" and "mythology." I hope I will not offend you by quoting from the myth page:

''A myth (not to be confused with an urban myth or urban legend) is a story which has deep explanatory or symbolic resonance for a culture. The term is sometimes used pejoratively in reference to the beliefs of a religion, to imply that the story is both fanciful and fictional. It is more often used to refer to a story that has been recorded as part of the history of a culture.''

(snip)

The myths that make up a culture's mythology are stories with deep explanatory or symbolic resonance for a culture.

Let me invite folk to talk about why these definitions are offensive and to offer ways to redefine them with more of a NPOV. Should we link this page on the Wikipedia utilities/Controversial subjects page? Thanks for your feedback -- Cayzle

Can't get that darn Wikipedia utilities/Controversial subjects link to work!

From Merriam-Webster dictionary (www.m-w.com). ..

1 a : a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon b : PARABLE, ALLEGORY 2 a : a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone; especially : one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society  b : an unfounded or false notion 3 : a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence 4 : the whole body of myths

When discussing 'myths' on Wikipedia, sense (1a) above is the primary one we would use. Note that that definition says nothing about the truth or falsehood of the events -- it says it is "ostensibly historical", without saying whether it actually is or not.

The other MW definitions, like (2b), really can't serve as the basis of an encyclopedia article -- we aren't going to write an article on "unfounded or false notions", especially since no one could agree what those unfounded or false notions were...

I see no problem with calling the stories of Jesus, Noah, etc., myths. People may find that offensive at first, but so long as we make clear that by calling them myths we are passing no judgement on their truth or falsehood, just commenting on their religious significance or cultural function, than they would no longer have any rational reason to be offended. -- SJK

 * I don't think that's going to work, because the MB (2b) definition will seem to be operating, regardless of your sympathetic intent. How about 'Creation Myths' as a separate article?

 * Creation myth is already a page of its own -- and I like the idea of linking to it! But many myths are not about "creation" at all. -- Cayzle

 * The MW definition (2b) is not NPOV. We really have only two choices -- make our mythology articles use MW definition (1a) (in which case the story of Jesus is undoubtedly a myth), or else not use the words myth or mythology at all. So either Jesus is a myth, or there shall be no mention of myths at all. If neither choice sounds ideal, that is only because of inbuilt Christian (or Jewish or Islamic) bias that most readers have. -- SJK

 * I suggest that a good approach might be to use MB (1a) as a foundation and acknowledge (2b) as a common point of view -- see my latest change to the page. -- Cayzle

I really like this latest version except for this: "Some people may consider referring to the Bible as a collection of myths to be offensive, but that is only because they have failed to understand the definition of myth we are using here." This sentence, especially the last half, sounds a little smarmy. I suggest, "Note that some people may consider referring to the Bible as a collection of myths to be offensive." and just leave it at that. -- Cayzle

Removed the following text because it doesn't really fit with the bullet list: ''Thus, the entire Bible is a collection of myths; something which even those who accept it as literally true would agree with, using the definition of myth we are adopting here. Some people may consider our referring to the Bible as a collection of myths to be offensive, but that may be due to a failure to understand the definition of myth we are using here.'' Somebody might reuse the content if the article is more comprehensive. -- HJH

I like the introduction as it is now. If someone later on reuses the removed text, he or she may consider to change it into a less 'didactic' version, avoiding the word 'failure': ''Thus, the entire Bible is a collection of myths. Some people may consider referring to the Bible as such to be offensive. However, using the definition of myth we are adopting here even those who accept it as literally true would agree.'' --TK

On reflection, I am not convinced that the Vodun reference is appropriate, primarily because my knowledge of it is so scanty. The question is, does Vodun include narratives (stories, legends, or tales) designed to enlighten, explain, or reveal truths? You can't have myth without narrative. Could someone who knows Vodun help out here? -- Cayzle

I'm not sure I agree with the addition of Pilgrim's Progress, especially in contrast with Narnia and the Selfish Giant. Both of the latter also include traditional mythological elements (mythological creatures, miraculous events, depictions of supernatural forces embodied in corporeal shapes). These are elements of fantasy fiction that are archtypally used in myths. Does Bunyon include any of these? Does Pilgrim's Progress fit the definition on the page? -- Cayzle

It's been a long time since I read it, but I think that Pilgrim's Progress at least includes "depictions of supernatural forces embodied in corporeal shapes", but mainly by running into a person named "(your favorite supernatural force here)". In other words, he didn't exactly make you guess what he was referring to or what was meant to represent what. In most or all of the others, there's plenty of symbolism, but the meaning of them isn't nearly as explicit. I'd be inclined to say Pilgrim's Progress is in another genre... --Wesley

I tried to compromise with my copy-edit, but I'm still unsatisfied as the connotations of unfounded, false, and imaginary seem inescapable. The article reads as an attempt to reduce religion to a level below that of science. --Ed Poor

I agree, and as long as stories are characterised as mythology that are actively believed as true, that will stay true. As I said on the talk:Scientific Mythology page, the technical use of myth as refering to true statements is not generally understood by the reading public at large, who I understand to be the target audience of the articles on wikipedia. -- BenBaker

I think it is obvious--though I am not a Christian at all but basically think much religion talk is nonsense (so I don't even like to call myself an atheist, because I don't know what it would mean to deny that God exists)--that the title of this article is extremely prejudicial. To label a body of literature "mythology" is to imply that it is false, or that it ought to be doubted anyway. Obviously, Christians disagree with that. When disagreement of this sort arises, what do we do? We try to rewrite the title, and the article, from a more neutral point of view.

This isn't even very hard! We just have to remember that it's what we're doing. Why can't we try to work toward compromise more often? Surely most of the same purposes of this present article can be achieved in the context of an article called the stories of Christianity. Why do we have to exert so much energy trying to make Wikipedia reflect our own personal views? --LMS

 * I'd hypothesize that it's because if we aren't going to call Christian stories "Christian Mythology", but we are going to call Celtic stories "Celtic Mythology", we are violating NPOV. First, we try to stay NPOV. Second, we try to reflect real world usage. This is a case where real world usage is decidedly NPOV. My religion is *based* on Celtic Mythology -- so do I now complain about it being NPOV? I'd sure have reason on my side, wouldn't I? Are you going to treat my religion differently from Christianity because it's not "mainstream"? Or are you going to water down the common terminology "Celtic Mythology" to "Stories of the Celts"? Shades of PC!

 * Don't worry, it's not a problem for me, anyway. I know my relious stories are considered "myths" by the majority of people, so it can stand as it is. But if we hold to that argument, the majority of people consider Christian stories to be myths, also. They just happen to be the majority in our part of the world and on Wikipedia. --Dmerrill

 * P.S. If I got a bit flamey, I could get points for arguing with LMS on the Are you a Wikipedaholic" test. ;-p

I'm confused by this argument. I can't tell if I should agree or not with your point. On the one hand, I'm fully aware that some neopagans regard their religions as derivative of old Celtic religions; but I am not aware that any of them would take issue with the words "Celtic mythology," per se. On the other hand, it's well-known (and therefore just maybe a smidge dishonest of you to pretend otherwise?) that many Christians will take issue with the freethinkers' and liberal theologians' label for Christian stories, "Christian mythology."

It's not about being politically correct--it's about being (1) polite, and more importantly for our purposes on Wikipedia (2) non-prejudicial.

And yes, common labels can be very prejudicial. Think of racial epithets. --LMS

 * I sure wasn't trying to be dishonest, and I don't think I was being dishonest, but I also was not clear. I only wanted to point out that a sizeable number of people consider Christian stories to be mythological, a sizeable number consider them to be largely true, and a sizeable number consider them to be literal fact. The same goes for Celtic mythology. Despite my personal view that they are all mythological constructs that explain truths in an accessible way, I think the same consideration should be given to those who believe otherwise, whether Christian or Celtic. I personally don't care whether we use "mythology" or "stories", but I do care about it being applied consistently.

 * And I should have never even mentioned PC. I don't think that's what you were doing. --Dmerrill

 * I don't have any idea where to put this interjection, so I'll put it here. Many of the stories of the Bible are what you are calling myths.  Some of them, quite clearly, are meant to be understood as metaphor or secret communication (like the Revelation of St. John).  Some of them are just meant to be a plain description of historical events... so I don't see how one can talk about the Bible as a whole being either a myth or not a myth.  --Alex Kennedy

The mere fact that some people will be offended by something does not, by itself, imply that it's wrong or biased. How can we call the stories of Sumerian gods "myths" and not call the same kinds of stories, told for the same kinds of purposes, "Christian myths", just because some (well, really, only one that we know of) might object? Are we men or mice? --LDC

Re this "The mere fact that some people will be offended by something does not, by itself, imply that it's wrong or biased," I'd agree, but I would add that the mere fact that some people will be offended by a certain label makes it very likely that it's biased. Remember, we're using a sense of bias, or neutrality, according to which something fails to be neutral, or is biased, if some significant minority of experts (or concerned parties) would disagree with a characterization. If the concerned parties are offended by a name, surely they'll disagree with it. --LMS

We exert a lot of energy probably because our deepest held views are the ones we have passion about, and passion is a strong motivation toward change. (and of course, we are talking about changing wikipedia)

Yeah, but look--if we all tried to channel that passion into a passion for truth, namely the truth about what various people (and the experts where expertise is needed) believe, Wikipedia would be a much more pleasant and (I'd argue) more productive place. I for example am not particularly interested in using Wikipedia to promote my own pet views of agnosticism (in a broad sense), libertarianism (the truth is out!), ethical naturalism and objectivism (even more shocking), and anti-supernaturalism (or, love of science, if you will). And yet I sure don't have to think to myself, "Gee, I'd better work on Wikipedia or I won't get paid"--I mean, I'm more addicted than anybody! So, on the one hand I'm addicted; on the other hand, I'm not grinding axes (I think).

Am I really to believe that some of these people here couldn't be interested in Wikipedia if they weren't using Wikipedia to grind their personal axes? --LMS

Is it a personal axe to say that myths revolving around Christianity do exist, and that the best way to treat them is under the topic of "Christian Mythology?" What about Narnia, at the least? See my citation of Christianity Today magazine -- which was removed!! Why was my citation to a Christian authority removed from a page on Christianity, anyway? I've been checking this topic VERY frequently, and it makes me sad that this page was removed so quickly that I had no chance to debate the issue before the work was complete. -- Cayzle

 * I'm with you, Cayzle, but try to remember that we passionate religious believers are participating in an NPOV project. We gotta find a way to channel our passion into writing that meets the NPOV standard. Is it easy? No way! If I hit the mark 80% of the time, it's a good day for me. Ed Poor

 * Thank you, Ed, for your kind words and attitude. Also note that my citation to Christianity Today was not removed, just put into one of those [1] things where I missed it at first. Sorry. -- Cayzle

 * and Ed, I simply feel that if I make an effort to be sensitive to non-Christian point of view, that they should make an equal effort to be sensitive to my point of view. Is it really too much to ask? -- BenBaker

 * Reportage that particular people hold particular points of view is at home here. But minority points of view expressed as if they were accepted or majority points of view are not, and failing to report on a significant point of view simply because it's offensive to some is also unacceptable.  This is an encyclopedia, not a discussion group.  An article should report on the state of the world--including the state of people's beliefs.  It shouldn't bend over backward to pander to any of those beliefs, or misrepresent them.  --LDC

 * I'm glad you agree with me, Lee, minority points of view should not be misrepresented as majority points of view, and should be labeled as such. The only concern I have is that when 'everyone knows something', it is hard to point out what numbers of people hold a view. We each live in our own world, in some strange solipstic way, wherein the people we find around ourselves tend to hold views similar to ourselves. -- BenBaker

Cayzle, maybe you don't have an ax to grind--that remark didn't apply to you alone, of course, if it applied to you at all! --LMS

Hi. I'm a Christian. I believe that Jesus Christ was God incarnate, died to free us from sin, and literally rose from the dead. That being said, I don't find the title "Christian Mythology" biased at all. However, I also don't consider the word "myth" to mean "false story that someone made up". It's unfortunate that the full and rich meaning of a wonderful word like "myth" is so tarnished.

I think the big fight over this page, the making of a science mythology page in response (containing non-mythical material), and the replacement of "mythology" with "story" are all simply ridiculous. That's not meant as a personal insult to anyone involved, but simply my view from a couple steps back. --STG

 * You don't think the story of Galileo dropping cannonballs from the leaning tower of Pisa is just as "mythical" as, say, the serpent in Eden? It has the same sorts of story elements: the evil establishment of Aristotle, the bold young hero, a memorable setting, and most importantly, a moral lesson: do the damned experiment yourself.  It also forms some of the underpinnings of scientific culture.  I think "myth" is exactly the right term for it.  It also never happened.  I share with Larry the concern that this page may reinforce the interpretation of "myth" as falsehood by listing only such examples, so I'll try to find some examples that actually happened if I can find them (actually, the peppered moth story is pretty good there--it's kind of ambiguously true).  --LDC

Sure I do! Science has many wonderful mythical elements in its history. I was refering to the original science mythology page that listed Darwinian evolution and Newton's theory of gravity. I quite like the current version, and hope that you continue developing it. Hmmm... do you think many scientists will be offended by the title? ;-) --STG

title: Talk:Christian Mythology