The list of those to have won a top-flight championship with Chelsea Football Club is fairly exclusive, in the grand scheme of things. If we limit it to those who achieved it before the Premier League era, we’re left with the squad of 1954/55, comprising 20 players.

One member of that group is Frank Blunstone, the archetypal old-fashioned winger, who was still a teenager when that season started. He joined us from Crewe Alexandra at the beginning of 1953, and over the course of the next decade, after marking his first team debut against Tottenham with a goal, Blunstone was Chelsea’s outside left for the best part of 12 seasons. Had it not been for injuries and National Service, he would have made far more than 347 appearances.

When a footballer’s country comes calling these days, it’s considerably less perilous than what potentially awaited them back in Blunstone’s day. Forget trips to St George’s Park, or England’s old training base at Bisham Abbey, to link up with the best English footballers on national team duty. This was serving your country in a very different way.

Although the Second World War had ended in 1945, there remained a need to maintain high levels of military manpower, which the government concluded could only be met by continuing National Service in peacetime. So, the National Service Act was passed in 1947 and came into force in January 1949, meaning that all physically fit males between the ages of 17 and 21 had to serve in one of the armed forces for an 18-month period. The following year, the period of service was lengthened to two years.

Blunstone signed for Chelsea as an 18-year-old midway through the 1952/53 season, but only a few months later this young lad who had uprooted from Crewe to move into digs in west London found out that he was being assigned to the North Staffordshire regiment.

This is where he took up the story during an interview with Chelsea Magazine back in 2012, when he was reliving his Blues career from start to finish. A broad grin broke out across his face as he recalled the reaction of his manager, Ted Drake, when he found out what awaited his new arrival.

'Ted said, ‘What?! That’s a marching regiment! You’re not going there!’ He asked his secretary, Mrs Metcalfe, to get Colonel Mitchell of the Army FA on the phone. ‘Mr Mitchell, I’ve just signed a lad from Crewe…’ By the time he put the phone down, it was all sorted and I was moved to the medics at Crookham near Aldershot.

'That was in 1953, and I did two years in the medics. Bobby Smith, who I played with at Chelsea, was also in the medics, but he was two years older than me and just finishing.'

Those who were conscripted – more than two million men between the years of 1949 and 1963 – also became eligible to feature for the football teams representing the armed forces.

'The Army team played quite a lot and we had a really good team – there were eight internationals in it! We played the FA XI at Sheffield and drew 1-1 in front of 30,000. We opened the floodlights at Glasgow Rangers, there were 58,000 there, and we beat them 2-0.

'I always say I’ve got a bad memory, but my wife says, ‘You haven’t got a bad memory, you only remember the things you want to remember.’ And she’s got a point! I can still reel off the Army team from the Fifties!

'In goals was Willie Fraser (Sunderland and Scotland), right-back Jim Meadows (Manchester City and England), left-back Mel Hopkins (Tottenham and Wales), right-half Ronnie Clayton (captain of Blackburn, captain of England), centre-half Phil Gunter (Portsmouth), left-half Eddie Clamp (Wolves), outside-right Alan Finney (Sheffield Wednesday), inside-right Albert Quixall (Sheffield Wednesday and went on to join Manchester United for a record fee, England international), centre-forward Mel Charles (brother of John, Welsh international at Swansea), inside-left Phil Woosnam (West Ham and Wales, became the top man, commissioner of the North American Soccer League), and myself.'

It should be noted that all the details added in parentheses came from Blunstone, with few pauses.

'We had a very good side! We used to take part in the triangular tournament against the French army and the Belgian army, and we won that most times.

'I look at my life in football and think we were lucky to be paid for something we enjoyed so much. I know it’s not as much as they get these days, and people often say to me, ‘I bet you wished you were playing today.’ Alright, the money is there, but we enjoyed what we did and that’s the main thing. And the memories I’ve got are fantastic!'

Combining a club football career with National Service was hard work, though. As he’s already alluded to, the matches came thick and fast for Blunstone, representing a variety of teams. It meant that his role in our run to the First Division title in 1954/55 was diminished, although it was his release from army duties in the late autumn of 1954 that coincided with our long unbeaten run that season. The statistics showed that he appeared in a little over 50 per cent of our matches – one of which was the title-clinching win over Sheffield Wednesday – but that’s not the half of it.

'I played nearly 100 games in that one year! I was knackered all the time. Nowadays, 40 or 50 is considered too much. I had to play for Chelsea, the depot team, the regional team, the Army team, England – all in one season. I probably played the most games for Chelsea and the depot team. The Army had first refusal on me, even over England!

'Looking back, it was a bit frustrating that I couldn’t play more for Chelsea that season. I remember one day the Army wouldn’t let me play for Chelsea and I had to play for them against the Isle of Wight instead! At the end of the season, when we won the championship, the lads went off to Canada and I wasn’t allowed to go with them – I had to go to Germany for three weeks with the Army team. We didn’t stay in hotels, no extra money, we just stayed in army camps.

'Being good at football didn’t give me any favourable treatment when I was there either. Not at all! When I played for Chelsea on the Saturday, you had to get leave to do that, a 48-hour pass, and be back in for the Monday morning, 8am sharp.

'So I went off and played for Chelsea at the weekend, got back in the camp, and we had to have jobs that had no responsibility, because we were away from the camp so much. They had us cleaning, but we usually got the squaddies to do it!

'I remember one time when we got down there on the Monday after a game, Tosh Chamberlain, who played for Fulham at outside-left and was my best mate, told me that the colonel wanted to see me right away.

'There was a lot of mickey taking in them days, and you’d often get sent on a wild goose chase, knock on the door and be greeted with, ‘Well what do you want, Blunstone?’ But he said, on his life, I had to go and see the colonel. So I went down there and he said, ‘Ah, Blunstone. You’ve been picked to play for England against Wales on Wednesday night. Go and get a pass, and get back in here Thursday morning. We’re going to have to give you a pass to get back in this camp soon!’ There was no congratulations, that was it! I played for England, we beat Wales 3-2, Roy Bentley scored a hat-trick and I was back the next day.'

The presence of Sir Stanley Matthews denied him the chance to stake a claim for a regular England place, but he still managed to accrue five caps along the way. He also continued to excel at Chelsea over the course of his long spell as a Blue, netting 54 times despite being more of a creator than a goalscorer.

Sadly, Frank’s career came to a premature end at the age of 30 when he ruptured his Achilles tendon, a year after he’d helped Tommy Docherty’s young diamonds return to the top tier. It was a bitter blow, especially after he had fought back from two broken legs, but he went on to enjoy a successful coaching career after that, including a stint with our youth team.

This article first appeared in the Chelsea matchday programme. You can buy past copies of the programme here.