Chelsea U21

The 2013 Under-21 Premier League final gave the age-group side a night against Manchester United, and Chelsea won it.

The team now called Cobham Next Gen — renamed in August 2026 — plays in Premier League 2 Division One and has done its home business at Kingsmeadow since May 2020. Chelsea bought the rights to the Kingston upon Thames ground in November 2015, but the tenancy only turned into regular football there once AFC Wimbledon moved out. Before that, the side worked out of the Cobham training base and occasionally borrowed Stamford Bridge, which is a different kind of afternoon: 4,850 capacity at Kingsmeadow, only 2,265 of it seated.

Calum McFarlane took charge for the 2025/26 season. He replaced Mark Robinson, who left in June 2024.

The blue shirt and shorts with white socks are the senior team's, and so is the badge — the ceremonial blue lion holding a staff. Nothing about the presentation suggests a separate club, and that is the point of it.

The structure the side belongs to has been rebuilt more than once. Ted Drake reorganised the youth set-up in 1952; Neil Bath became academy director in 2004. Behind both of them sits the parent club, formed on 10 March 1905 — the reserve side has no founding date of its own, which is the honest answer to when it began.