True Blues — Chelsea FC
ΕΛ

Season: 1925–26

Football League Second Division

League

Chelsea’s seventeenth competitive season was the second year in the Second Division after peacetime relegation.

Division
Football League Second Division (Tier 2)
Manager
David Calderhead
Top scorer (league)
Bob Turnbull (29)
Top scorer (all comps)
Bob Turnbull (30)
Avg. league attendance
32,357

Cups & Europe

FA Cup
Fourth round
League Cup
—
Europe
—
Other
London Challenge Cup: Round 2 (beat Crystal Palace 4–0, 14 Sep 1925; lost to Brentford 1–3, 12 Oct 1925); London Professional Charity Fund: drew Millwall 2–2 (9 Nov 1925) and lost 1–3 (30 Nov 1925)

Notes

Chelsea’s seventeenth competitive season was the second year in the Second Division after peacetime relegation. David Calderhead remained secretary-manager. The second tier still had 22 clubs, with only the top two promoted — and a rewritten offside law (two opponents instead of three) lit the fuse under English football’s scoring. The Pensioners finished third with 52 points — 19 wins, 14 draws and 9 defeats, 76 goals scored and 49 conceded — five points short of Derby County in second and eight behind champions The Wednesday on 60. Both of those clubs went up. Home record was 10 wins, 7 draws and 4 defeats (42–22); away from the Bridge Chelsea were almost as productive — 9 wins, 7 draws and 5 defeats (34–27). Bob Turnbull had a season for the ages: 29 league goals and 1 in the FA Cup for 30 in all competitions, the Second Division’s leading scorer. Albert Thain chipped in 15 in the league. The early run was electric — 5–1 at Nottingham Forest, 6–0 at Port Vale, then Turnbull hat-tricks against Barnsley and Stockport County. The biggest home win was 5–0 over Preston North End; the heaviest defeat a 0–4 finale at Portsmouth on May Day. Jack Harrow’s long Stamford Bridge career wound down during the campaign; William Whitton also retired. Average home league attendance was 32,357 (679,492 across 21 games). The largest Bridge crowd of the season was 49,707 for Blackpool on Boxing Day; the smallest league gate was 9,335 for Derby County on 26 April. In the FA Cup, under the new numbering that sent League clubs in at the third round, Chelsea beat Plymouth Argyle 2–1 away (Turnbull, McNeil) before Crystal Palace won 2–1 at Selhurst Park in the fourth round on 30 January 1926 (Thain). Chelsea also reached Round 2 of the London Challenge Cup — Crystal Palace beaten 4–0, then a 1–3 exit to Brentford — and played Millwall twice in the London Professional Charity Fund. Third place was the club’s best finish since dropping into the Second Division — still not quite enough for an immediate return to the top flight.

Kits

Under review
Home
Away
Third—

Historical Football Kits shows a distinct 1912–1914 home panel at the start of this span and a further 1914–1918 panel covering the wartime seasons: royal blue shirt with white shorts (socks not settled in text). Maroon remained the change colour into 1912–1914 A; HFK’s wartime panel is labelled within the same royal-blue era. Some accounts place the darkening from pale/Eton blue earlier (see the 1906–1912 row); the archive therefore starts the royal-blue row at 1912–13 without claiming an exact switch date or inventing a shade beyond HFK’s royal-blue labelling.

Illustration from hex colours (not official kit photography).

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History

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Sources

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