Dude they won the League Cup in 1998, FA Cup in 97 and 2000 and the Uefa Cup in 1998. I distinctly remember the FA and Uefa Cup wins and I’m also 29. That was all before Abramovich.
Yeah, and as is commonly accepted, they’d done so by running up enough debt to go under. Then Abramovich came along, wiped out that debt and spent insane amounts of cash to put them over the top and keep them there. You could argue the Man City lottery win was more egregious because they weren’t very good (despite a nice new stadium bought for - relatively - peanuts), but Chelsea’s was a lottery win nonetheless.
Still can’t get over City’s one. It should have been either us, Everton or Villa. We were all either there or there abouts. City were nothing before the money.