When Chelsea first wore all blue

Photo: private archive. Paisley Charity Cup, St Mirren v Chelsea, Love Street, 3 August 1963. Blue shirt, blue shorts, white socks — months before that became the club’s regular look.

For nearly half a century Chelsea were blue from the waist up. Blue shirts, white shorts, and for long stretches black socks. The colour stopped at the belt. When a supporter today says “all blue”, they mean what we see every week at the Bridge: blue shirt, blue shorts, white socks.

Plenty of fans — ourselves included, for years — remember that look arriving in 1964–65. As everyday memory that is fair enough: that was the season all-blue became the regular home strip. The real timeline starts a little earlier, and it is more interesting.

Summer 1963: the Paisley trial

On Saturday 3 August 1963, Tommy Docherty’s side travelled to Love Street in Paisley for the Paisley Charity Cup. Against St Mirren, Chelsea won 5–2 (4–1 at half-time) in front of about 12,000 spectators.

Chelsea’s scorers: Ron Harris (17′), Graham Moore (19′), Jimmy Mulholland (20′), Bobby Tambling (30′ and 73′). Bonetti also saved a Clunie penalty on 73′. The XI included Shellito, McCreadie, Venables, Mortimore, Murray and Knox among others.

A photograph from that afternoon shows something that was not yet “the” Chelsea look: a player in a royal-blue shirt (circular Cadogan lion on the chest), matching blue shorts and white socks with a blue turnover — against an all-white St Mirren side and a mustard-yellow goalkeeper. Sixteen days later, on 19 August 1963, the same idea (badged blue shirt + blue shorts) appeared again in a friendly against Charlton Athletic at The Valley.

So all-blue did not drop from the sky in September 1964. It was already being tried in the summer before the league season.

4 March 1964: the first competitive outing

Through 1963–64 the regular home strip stayed blue shirts with white shorts. The Cadogan crest had already been retired from competitive shirts. All-blue was waiting its turn.

That turn came on 4 March 1964, at Stamford Bridge against Stoke City. That afternoon Chelsea wore the blue / blue / white combination in a competitive match for the first time — the look that would become the club’s signature. It was still season 1963–64, not a new campaign.

There is an earlier footnote too: in 1962 a prototype all-blue strip had been made up and rejected as too radical. Docherty, who wanted to modernise the whole club, pressed on. By the spring of 1964 the change stuck.

1964–65: the identity that stayed

From the start of 1964–65, blue–blue–white became the regular home strip. The shirt took a crew neck with white trim and a new scrolled CFC cypher in place of the old Cadogan lion. Later that season small white numbers appeared on the shorts — Chelsea among the first First Division sides to do so.

From then on, when people say “Chelsea’s blue kit”, they almost always mean the blue shorts as well. The white socks became so much ours that visiting teams often change theirs at the Bridge.

What to remember

| Moment | What was worn | |---|---| | 1962 | All-blue prototype — rejected as too bold | | 3 Aug 1963 | Paisley Charity Cup vs St Mirren — early blue/blue/white trial | | 19 Aug 1963 | Friendly vs Charlton — blue shorts again with a badged shirt | | 4 Mar 1964 | First competitive all-blue, vs Stoke (still 1963–64) | | 1964–65 | Settled home identity |

The shorthand “from 1964–65” is not a lie — that is when it stuck. The first time the Blues walked out all blue was a summer afternoon in Paisley, five goals later, with a photograph to prove it.