Chelsea fans have long taken players from overseas to their hearts. Even with the current strong English spine to the side, it is hard to imagine any team in Chelsea blue without foreign stars adding their skills and characteristics to the entertainment at Stamford Bridge.

Ninety-years ago the affection was the same although it was directed towards just one man. Nils Middelboe, the 'Great Dane' as 6ft 2in footballer was nicknamed, was the trailblazer for overseas stars at Chelsea and indeed was one of the first foreign players in English football.

He was also very famous in his homeland of Denmark which meant his story was well known to current Chelsea sporting director Frank Arnesen.

However Arnesen was unaware of Middelboe's Chelsea past so when he heard relatives of Middelboe had been traced by club historian Rick Glanvill, he organised a visit to discover more.

That is how three generations of Middelboes came to spend time with Arnesen at Cobham before a visit to Stamford Bridge and the Museum there that features their famous relative.

This branch of the family was naturalised in England around the time of the Second World War but didn't initially realise how well-regarded Nils was within these shores.

'One day I took a taxi but didn't have enough money,' recounts great nephew Ulrich Middelboe, now 80-years-old.

'So I gave him my name and he said are you anything to do with Nils and when I said yes, he refused to be paid.'

'The name does mean things to people and someone came into my work and asked if I had a really famous relation who once played for Chelsea,' adds Lucy Middelboe who kept her maiden name after marriage.

'The next time he came for a meeting he brought photocopies of old team sheets.'

The family naturally became firm Chelsea fans Lucy's son Edward standing out among all the Man United fans at his Bristol school but with a good story to tell, especially when his hero John Terry stopped his passingcar and signed an autograph.

During the meeting, Arnesen was able to read and translate passages from Nils Middelboe's autography for the family and recalled his own father discussing the player.

Middelboe spent 10 years at Chelsea but interruption by the First World War and an arrangement whereby he could select the away games he travelled to meant he played 46 games between 1913 and 1922.

His position, as it was known then, was half-back and he remained an amateur throughout his playing days, a career as a banker too lucrative to give up.

It was because of his 'day job' that the Dane decided to move to England and he was set to sign for Newcastle until persuaded to head for London by Chelsea and England centre-forward Vivian Woodward.

On his debut, the other players decided he should be made captain.

Before coming to Chelsea, the international superstar had become the first to score a goal in an Olympic football tournament, that goal also the first by a Danish national side. After retiring, he was a manager and important administrator back in Denmark and was involved in Chelsea touring there in the 1950s. He died in 1976 aged 88.