The Real Gent Who Beat Jose to Blues' First Title

By Michael Hart, Evening Standard
22 April 2005

Classy manager Ted Drake masterminded Chelsea's top-flight title triumph in 1955, a feat which the boys of 2005 are soon to emulate, and laid the foundations for the modern club.

Fifty years ago tomorrow thousands of fans swarmed across the pitch at Stamford Bridge to acclaim Ted Drake for masterminding Chelsea's League Championship triumph.

A crowd of 51,421 watched Chelsea clinch the title with a 3-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday on 23 April 1955 and immediately after, with Drake and his jubilant players in the front row of the directors box, shared what until this season was a unique moment in the club's history.

Drake addressed the joyous throng, as did the chairman Joe Mears and top scorer Roy Bentley. The champagne was uncorked and the parties continued long into the night. For decades the club had been a music hall joke, famed for their Chelsea Pensioner image. Now Drake had turned them into the champions of England for the first time.

Although Jose Mourinho and his team are about to emulate that feat, Drake's place in the club's folklore is secure. Values may have changed at Stamford Bridge over the years but no one forgets a class act. And Drake was a class act.

A legendary centre-forward in his playing days with Arsenal, he spent nine years as manager of Chelsea. Many of those who remember him claim the Drake legacy provided the foundations for the modern Chelsea.

"Ted arrived like a breath of fresh air in 1952," recalled Ron Greenwood, who won a Championship medal with Chelsea in 1955 and later managed West Ham and England. "He set his sights high and demanded the best."

Bentley, Chelsea captain and top scorer for eight consecutive seasons, recalled how Drake revolutionised training. "No one did any real coaching in those days, but he did," said Bentley. "He told us how to play.

He introduced scouting reports. He had the opposition watched before we played them. When I see Jose Mourinho's team now I see the fulfilment of Ted's original ambitions.

"We used to be a vaudeville joke. Ted changed that. He even changed the club motif and replaced the Chelsea pensioner with a lion."

Comparing Drake with Mourinho is as meaningless as comparing two teams separated by half a century. Drake built the champions on a shoestring budget. Chelsea's most expensive player was Eric Parsons who had cost 23,000 from West Ham.

Bentley was signed for 11,000 from Newcastle, John McNichol came from Brighton for 12,000 and Frank Blunstone cost 7,000 from Crewe. Others like Derek Saunders and Jim Lewis were amateurs. Sixteen men played the bulk of Chelsea's 42 League matches and together their transfer fees wouldn't pay Frank Lampard's salary for a week.

Drake had been one of the great players of the thirties. He cost Arsenal 6,000 from Southampton in 1934, played in two Championship winning teams and the victorious 1936 FA Cup side.

He still holds the Arsenal record for the most League goals scored in one season - 42 in 41 matches in 1934-35. The following season he scored seven in one match against Aston Villa and, on the train home, sat among the fans with the match ball under his arm.

Denis Compton once told me that Drake, who also played cricket for Hampshire, was the bravest centre forward he'd ever known. He'd dive into thickets of defenders without the slightest regard for his own safety and his tackle that broke Luisito Monti's leg in the first 90 seconds of England's 3-2 win over Italy in 1934 resulted in the infamous 'Battle of Highbury'.

Of course, he frowned on such recklessness once he became manager of Chelsea. In fact, rather like Sir Alf Ramsey a few years later, he worked hard to cultivate a new, more mature image. He took to wearing pinstriped suits, enjoyed an afternoon round of golf and played down his reputation as a dressing room joker.

But, like John Arlott, he never lost that soft Hampshire accent nor the centre parting that distinguished footballers in the Thirties much like the Ferrari, the tacky mansion and the waxed chest identify today's millionaire players.

Once he'd won the title, he realised Chelsea had to rebuild. He introduced the club's first youth development scheme and was responsible for the emergence of players like Jimmy Greaves, Les Allen, Bobby Tambling, Peter Brabrook, Barry Bridges, Peter Bonetti, Ken Shellito and Terry Venables.

"An absolute gent," said Venables. "Always spic and span."

"Drake's Ducklings" were to form the foundations for the modern Chelsea but the man himself wasn't around long enough to see them fulfil their potential. In January 1961, Chelsea suffered a humiliating FA Cup exit against Crewe. It was the beginning of the end for Drake. Seven months later he was sacked.

He became a life assurance salesman, scouting occasionally for Fulham manager Vic Buckingham.

When Buckingham joined Barcelona as manager, he made Drake his coach, a strange parallel to the career of Mourinho, who worked for another former Fulham manager, Sir Bobby Robson, at Barcelona.

Mourinho and Drake have little else in common. Mourinho is brash, multilingual and sophisticated with a degree in football methodology. Drake, who began his football career with Southampton Gasworks, was a yeoman son of Hampshire and as tough as old boots. He died at the age of 82 in May 1995.

He remains one of the great names in Chelsea history but his champions wouldn't have lived with Mourinho's boys. Drake's team lost 10 and drew 12 of their 42 matches and won the title by four points from Wolves.

In the final First Division table for 1954-55, just 26 points covered the 22 clubs from Chelsea at the top with 52 points, the lowest total in history, to Wednesday at the bottom. Today 55 points cover the 20 Premiership clubs and Chelsea are so far ahead of most of the rest I estimate they would have had the title won by January in 1955.