‘An organisation where such football associations as those of Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Egypt, Bohemia and Pan-Russia are co-equal with England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland seems to me to be a case of magnifying the midgets… We can look after our own affairs.’

In October 1928 Football League official and FA councillor Charles Sutcliffe pondered the proposal by FIFA to stage a ‘World Championship of international teams’ to be hosted in South America in the summer of 1930, and didn’t like what he saw.

‘The FIFA does not appeal to me,’ he wrote in ‘Topical Times’. ‘An organisation where such football associations as those of Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Egypt, Bohemia and Pan-Russia are co-equal with England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland seems to me to be a case of magnifying the midgets… We can look after our own affairs.’

It reads as elitist language from an entitled official, especially in light of the success of such teams since – and even now at the expanded 2026 Mondiale.

A month later the British associations duly withdrew from FIFA just as the inaugural 1930 World Cup was being planned in Uruguay, home of the Olympic champions.

So no English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish player was able to show off their talents at the first World Cup in the sport they had taken to the world.

The stated concerns were bogus amateurism in international football and the difficulty of playing teams from countries defeated in the Great War, but a more fundamental worry was the loss of British sovereignty over the direction and laws of the game.

Incredibly, it took Chelsea to fly the flag, a year earlier in 1929, and tour South America to play against the cream of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay’s international sides – where England would not.

The trip was most likely devised by Chelsea’s Battersea-born chairman and football visionary William Claude Kirby, a retired shipping clerk, or equally well-connected fellow director Colonel C.D. Crisp. Since relegation in 1924, the Blues had spent five seasons in the Second Division doldrums, finishing fifth, third, fourth, third, ninth.

Knowing the huge interest British football generated in South America (where professionalism was in its infancy) would not now be satiated by the FIFA tournament, he would have spotted an opportunity to market the Stamford Bridge outfit in a burgeoning market.

The appearance fees would have been hugely lucrative and the travelling time would keep the players fit for much of the summer too. A team in a Division Two rut might also bond usefully over the months of travel.

The Chelsea party crossed the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on board RMS Asturias, keeping fit with on-deck training across before it docking on 16 May 1929.

In another life Asturias was Titanic’s body-double in the disaster movie ‘A Night To Remember’.

The Highland Brigade, the Nelson Line’s two-month-old liner, brought them back to London two-and-a-half months later on 26 July 1929.

The 14,000-ton ship wasn’t just returning some of the capital’s finest football beefcake to their home port – stacked in its hold were tonnes of fresh meat from Argentina.

The passenger list reveals the Welsh, Scottish and English nationality of the Blues’ squad – despite the impending South American boycott of their national teams.

Team manager David Calderhead did not accompany them. Instead his duties would have been shared between the coaching staff of Jacks Whitley and Harrow, both former players.

It’s reasonable to assume that directors Crisp and Kirby had quite a lot to say on playing matters there too.

The tour covered nearly 2,000 land miles and the team played 16 matches, winning five. The differences in football culture were enlightening.

Barging another player, even a goalkeeper, was part of the British game, but outlawed in South America. The practice of it by Chelsea’s players brought a violent reaction in Buenos Aires, with an angry mob vaulting ten-foot barbed wire fences around the pitch – a structure the Chelsea tourists had previously noted with some astonishment.

The English were pelted with objects, one player was punched by a postman from the crowd, another by an opponent on the pitch – the assailant, Luisito Monti, was soon practising the same dark arts at Juventus.

Some of the stadium infrastructure in Buenos Aires matched such ‘uncivilised’ behaviour. Even the size of footballs varied – the South American variety was smaller and harder than Football League regulations.

But at the same time the Chelsea party often observed – at Penarol, Uruguay, Rosario, Argentina, and Fluminense in Brazil especially – a remarkable appetite and passion for the game that was matched by excellent sporting facilities.

These images left an impression on the tourists as long-lasting as the astonishing pace and ball control of many South American players.

The Chelsea cavalcade generated frenzied interest everywhere it went. At Kirby’s behest the Pensioners introduced numbered shirts to the region – ten years before England caught on – immediately earning the nickname ‘Los Numerados’.

The Pensioners also became the first professional British side to play in Sao Paulo. Twice they drew huge crowds in vibrant Rio, once under floodlights for the first time – more than a decade before artificial lighting hit the English game.

From all these things, though, the most important legacy was the team bonding on a gruelling trip. The following summer Chelsea earned promotion to the top flight and stayed there for over 30 years.

While in letters home Kirby marvelled at the football spirit encountered, fellow director Crisp complained to the FA about ‘very bad refereeing’, ‘badly controlled crowds’ and a stereotypical ‘Latin temperament’.

This may finally have convinced the authorities. A few months later the British associations finally and formally rejected an offer to go to Uruguay.

In retrospect, given the broader benefits to Chelsea of that summer tour, it seems an awful oversight.