History of Chelsea F.C. - Battle For The Bridge

Battle For The Bridge

As noted above, when Bates bought Chelsea in 1982 he only bought the club and not SB Properties, the company which now owned the freehold of Stamford Bridge; the club and the stadium had been separated in financial restructuring during the late 1970s. Bates initially agreed a seven-year lease, which would keep Chelsea at Stamford Bridge while its future was decided.

According to Bates, he and David Mears, the majority shareholder of SB Properties, shook hands on a deal which would see Chelsea acquire Mears' stake in SB Properties for £450,000. However, Bates later discovered that Mears was also in discussions with Crystal Palace owner Ron Noades, with a view to moving Chelsea away from Stamford Bridge and have them ground share with Palace at Selhurst Park. Mears and Lord Chelsea subsequently sold their shares in SB Properties to property developers Marler Estates, giving Marler a 70% stake in the company. This began a long campaign by Marler to force Chelsea out of Stamford Bridge so it could be sold off and redeveloped.

Over the next decade, Bates waged a war of attrition against Marler, acquiring a minority stake in SB Properties and initiating a series of court injunctions and delaying tactics, designed to wear them down. He also launched the "Save the Bridge" campaign, with the aim of raising £15m to acquire the freehold from Marler. Marler in turn put forward several schemes which would see Chelsea removed from Stamford Bridge. David Bulstrode, chairman of Marler, proposed a merger between Fulham and Queens Park Rangers, with Chelsea then relocating to Rangers' Loftus Road stadium. In March 1986, Marler's plans to redevelop the Stamford Bridge site without Chelsea were approved by Hammersmith and Fulham Council; the council reversed its policy when the Labour Party gained control of it in May 1986. In December 1987, in a "momentous decision", Bates' own plans to redevelop Stamford Bridge into a modern football stadium were approved by the council's planning committee.

Chelsea were nonetheless served notice to quit Stamford Bridge, upon the expiry of the lease in 1989. However, Cabra Estates, which had purchased Marler in 1989, were eventually bankrupted in the property market crash of 1992. This enabled Bates to do a deal with their creditors, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and reunite the freehold with the club. Bates then created the Chelsea Pitch Owners, a non-profit organisation owned by the fans which in 1997 purchased the freehold of the stadium, the club's naming rights and the pitch to ensure that property developers could never again try to purchase Stamford Bridge. Following this, work was begun to renovate the entire stadium (bar the East Stand), making it all-seater and bringing the stands closer to the pitch and under cover, which was finally completed by the millennium.