Chelsea finally have a proper global online store once again

Welcome back, chelseamegastore.com.

One of the very first things I ever did after accepting my very first real job — but before getting my very first real paycheck — was walk into the Chelsea Megastore (the one at the Bridge, as it turned out thanks to certain other circumstances) and buy a Damien Duff t-shirt. It was just a cotton t-shirt, not an actual home shirt. I barely had any money and my credit cards were pretty close to being maxed out — the American Dream! But it had DUFF 11 on the back, and it was the business. I loved that shirt. I still have that shirt. It’s not really in a condition to be worn in public anymore. But sometimes I put it on to go kick the ball about, and it makes me feel cool (and a bit stinky, but I digress).

Once I settled into the job and had some spending money, other shirts, shorts, hats, scarves, and even some cufflinks were added to the collection. I now have two Christmas “jumpers” which is just the right sort of semi-functional real clothing that makes it less awkward than walking around in a home/away/third kit. The future wife did buy me a jersey in 2008, which came in handy while watching the 2012 Champions League final in a pub in San Francisco. It’s a bit of a silly thing, to walk around in any sort of team-branded merchandise, but fandom is an inherently silly thing.

In any case, why am I telling you this? Well, after years and years, Chelsea have finally opened a proper online store once again, one that can ship worldwide and offer the same products to all corners of the world. This used to be the case back at the start of the Abramovich era, but then the online MegaStore got regionalized — there was chelseamegastoreusa.com and chelseamegastoreasia.com and so on — which wouldn’t have been a problem, but the stores never offered the same things (since they had different back-ends, with Kitbag in the UK and WorldSoccerShop in the USA, for example).

I held hope that last summer’s takeover by Nike would finally put an end to that nonsense, but Nike just made the situation worse and ran an even more limited USA store, for example (and got rid of all non-Nike things, too).

But now, all our consumerist dreams can be fulfilled with a unified megastore open for business, with the full range of kits, training gear, and other assorted items available worldwide.

Cha-ching!