United Kingdom - Living The Football Dream With Chelsea

Hello there!

Having completed my earlier travel posts on several interesting countries and regions, including Japan, Maldives, Indonesia, US, Europe, New Zealand and the latest one being Australia, it's time to fly over to United Kingdom!

This was a trip I made in 2014, I was there partly for work and partly for leisure as well. At that point in my life, it was one of the further destination that I have travelled all the way from Asia and it was definitely an eye opener to see how United Kingdom, or more specifically London, looked like. One thing that I remembered vividly was how strong GBP was, and everything was so expensive. For example, even though the numerical digits of the prices were small, because 5 or 10 GBP was easily a lot already. Anyway, time to relive those moments as I share the sights and sounds of my experience!

I touched down in London in the morning and fortunately I was able to check in to the hotel before the standard check in time, as I had given them prior notice that I would be arriving early. Back then, I had planned out my itinerary very meticulously (I don't do these days when travelling!) and my first stop to Stamford Bridge!

Being a football (soccer) fan back then, Chelsea was definitely one of the major soccer clubs in UK and in Europe as well. Even though I wasn't a supporter of Chelsea, I thought it would be an interesting experience to go for a stadium tour and see those big stadiums for myself. It wasn't a long metro ride and I managed to find my way to Stamford Bridge.

This was one of the many entrances and I definitely was excited!

We first visited the club store and there's a lot of club merchandise on display and on sale as well. Jerseys, football, you name it. Any Chelsea fans would love it, but these stuff did feel a little expensive for me.

The players 12 years ago! Who still remember them? Hehe!

They also had a section where they displayed their silverware won over the years. One of the more successful clubs for sure!

A separate board to showcase their milestone!

And finally we moved on to the actual stadium! I visited during the summer period, so there were no matches around that period, and the club was doing some renovation and maintenance to the stadium and the pitch. So this was the "construction" view. Not the best photo to take but it's still a great feeling to be in the stands.

And then we moved to the media room, and there was where the media will be doing interviews with the managers, coaches, and players, before and after the matches. And here our friendly guide was briefing us from the seat.

And then we proceeded to the changing room. There were two changing rooms, one for the home team, one for the away team, and interestingly, they were quite different.

They even had these beds for the physiotherapists to work on the players during matchday.

And this was the showers, and a tub as well.

Finally, we descended to ground level to catch another angle of the stadium. Lots of work in progress, but definitely important for the club to be of a top notch standard.

So that sums up my first ever stadium visit to a top notch European football club - Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. It was really an interesting experience and the guided tour was very helpful to understand many aspects of the game actually. Of course, there are other football clubs in London, so who knows, I might share about them in the later posts too! Iykyk. Hehe!

And that's all I have today! Have you been to London or United Kingdom? Let me know in the comments below!

Finally, thanks for reading my post in the community under World Map Pin!