When it comes to football clubs and their mascots, there are always likely to be some that stand out from the crowd. In the case of Chelsea’s fierce London rivals Arsenal, for example, the decision to make the mascot a giant green dinosaur named Gunnersaurus meant that it gained some traction with supporters throughout the country. Some mascots, on the other hand, can come across like afterthoughts, with little effort being put into introducing them to the world. That is certainly an accusation that could be made about Stamford the Lion.
Who is Stamford the Lion?
Whilst many top-flight clubs might look to steer away from any association with a lion because of the link to the Three Lions on the England shirt, the same is not true of Chelsea. The Stamford Bridge club has long been willing to embrace the ties to the England national side when supporters of a club such as Liverpool might be keener to avoid such links. So it is that the club has had the Lion Rampant as part of its signage and the club badge over the years, with a decision taken in 1980 to introduce one as the club’s official mascot.
According to the artist Trevor Heath, it was he who was responsible for the birth of Stamford. At the start of the 1980s, Heath was given the job of writing a cartoon for the Chelsea match day programme. It was in that cartoon that he came up with the idea of Stamford, writing several frames of cartoons that showed the exploits of the friendly lion, decked out in a Chelsea kit and with a huge mane of hair. He said things like, “Welcome back lads. I hope you haven’t had too good a Christmas. But if you have, I hope you’ve recovered quicker than me!”
In the story that Heath tells, someone who took photographs of the team informed him that his Stamford the Lion column was the first thing that the players looked for when they received their copies of the programme. Allister Bowtell was then given the task of bringing Stamford the Lion to life, creating a costume that could then be worn around Stamford Bridge by someone portraying the Lion for the supporters of the club. Heath believed that Bowtell had done an ‘excellent job’ of converting the drawings into a real costume.
Stamford the Lion’s ‘Official’ Origin Story
Although we all know that Trevor Heath was responsible for the original creation of Stamford the Lion, Chelsea Football Club needed to come up with a more interesting story than that in an attempt to ‘sell’ his existence to supporters. The official story began on a cold evening in the winter, when a Chelsea employee had turned up at Stamford Bridge to find a small lion cub in a wicker basket, located by the entrance the ground. Worried about him, the staff member took the lion cub inside and gave him the name of ‘Stamford’ after where he was discovered.
Although you might think that the sensible thing to do would be to tell someone about him or alert animal control, the staff member instead decided to keep it secret and to raise Stamford underneath the West Stand. The plan had been to give the young lion to London Zoo, but when he grew bigger and was introduced to other members of the club staff as well as the players, everyone fell in love with Stamford. The result was that no one could bear to give him up, with the lion remaining at the ground as he grew bigger and bigger.
Soon, Stamford was tall enough to be able to see through the stands and watch Chelsea games play out, becoming a ‘True Blue’ and quickly turning into the club’s number one supporter. The players and the team’s coaches loved having him around so much that they insisted that he join them for matches as their lucky charm. The lion loved match days, relishing the chance to be inside the ground for the big games and quickly winning the hearts of the supporters. The result was that Chelsea’s mascot was born, later becoming the editor of Bridge Kids magazine.
The Addition of Bridget
Whilst six-foot tall Stamford was seen as an important part of Chelsea folklore, there was no denying that he was lonely. It is also the case that it was a very male-centric mascot at a time when women’s football was becoming more and more popular and Chelsea Women were amongst the most successful in England. It was with that in mind that a decision was taken to introduce Bridget the Lion in 2013, perhaps because the pun of Stamford and Bridget was too good to resist for the Stamford Bridge-based side.
STAMFORD & Bridget are a big hit with the @ChelseaFC fans! #CFC #CFCinSydney pic.twitter.com/GDsGJfZfQi
— Accor Stadium (@AccorStadium) June 1, 2015
Whatever the thinking, Bridget came about in 2013 and has been part of Stamford Bridge’s mascot pride ever since. The pair of them are inseparable, with the likelihood being that if you see one of them in West London then the other one won’t be far behind. In 2018, the pair even gave tours of Stamford Bridge, the ground that they call their home. They were also given makeovers that, it’s fair to say, did not go down particularly well with the Chelsea supporters. They took to social media to complain about the update that the lions had received.