Chelsea FC currently boasts 16 Official supporters clubs in England and has a further 40 worldwide. But what are they? We ask Joe Tyler, who runs Eastern Blues, the Norfolk and Suffolk Official supporters club a few questions What is an Official Supporters Club? A supporters club is 60 CFC membership holders (for UK clubs) or more who live within a certain area of one another that is official recognised by Chelsea Football Club and is structured with committee personnel and club members. There are different levels of club, Bronze which is ticket priority to the lesser games at the Bridge, for clubs outside the UK. Silver which is the same but inside the UK. Gold which is priority to all games at Stamford Bridge and platinum which is priority to all games home and away. Why are they important to Chelsea? They benefit Chelsea in a number of ways. They save the club money and time. They increase the fan base. They sell more match tickets. They reduce ticket touting. They make attending matches safer both inside and outside the stadium. They improve supporter/club relations. Why are they important to the fans? When Chelsea introduced the supporters clubs scheme, they drew up a set of guidelines, many of which are still in place today with the fundamental principle being to give fans outside of London better access to the club. You would expect the biggest club to be based in London, but Chelsea specifically set up the rules so supporters clubs had to be based a minimum of 50 miles away from London. People who are Chelsea members will know that loyalty points can be a pain when it comes to buying tickets for the bigger games. Supporters clubs can buy tickets to these fixtures without the loyalty point requirement because Chelsea recognises that people who do not have to travel have an unfair advantage over the people who do. Many supporters clubs will also arrange their own group travel to matches home and away, reducing the cost of travel and increasing the enjoyment. There is nothing like a coach load of Blues, all of which know one another, arriving at an away game! Our club also hosts legends events, does charity work, we’ve been on Chelsea TV 4 times and other media outlets on numerous occasions. I believe some of the others do these as well but not all of them. Click here to view the article
