Hello and welcome to Straight Out of Cobham, the Chelsea FC podcast from The Athletic.

With the UK still in lockdown and live football of fast-fading memory,

we're bringing you a special show this week

as we look back on the most significant moments

in Chelsea's recent history,

the takeover of the club by Roman Abramovich.

We'll speak to one of the key players in the deal,

examine how it came to fruition, and explore the effect it had on the club and English football.

This is straight out of Cobham.

Yes, hello again, listener. It's me, Matt Davis-Adams in the host chair for weekly Chelsea chat. Dominic Fyfield and Simon Johnson will join us later in the show, but for the first part of today's episode, I'm joined by the athletics, Liam, to me. Hi, Liam. Hello. So today we're going to be talking about how Roman Abramovich came to take ownership of Chelsea, and to help us piece together this story, we're joined by Mark Taylor. Hi, Mark.

Hi.

And those of you've read Liam, ownership of Chelsea and to help us piece together the story we're joined by Mark Taylor hi

Mark. Hi. And those of you've read Liam's fabulous piece for the athletics and written series

on how close Chelsea came to losing Stanford Bridge will recognise Mark's name. For those not up to

speed, Mark tell us a bit about your background and how you came to be involved in this takeover.

Yeah, well I'm a corporate lawyer and I acted for Ken and Chelsea when they saved the ground

in 1992. I became a director of the company when it got an A-listing in 1996 and remained a director until we sold to Roman

in 2003. So before we get to the takeover then, the Chelsea pitch owners scheme, which ensures

the security of Stanford Bridges Chelsea's home, that was your idea too, wasn't it? Well, it was

Ken's idea and he used me to implement it, because he had a lot

of ideas, but he didn't obviously have the legal knowledge that he needed to put it in place,

but no, it was his idea and I sort of implemented it for him. If we look ahead to June 2003,

...